Now and Then
by riveriver
Summary: She knew the moment she raced over the treaty line that she would follow him for the rest of her life. And despite all his efforts and determination to fly solo, he knew he would never be without her again. (Drabbly AU series wherein Leah stays with Jacob while he refuses to give himself up to the imprint.)
1. part one: prologue (leah)

**_Warnings:_** _This is an anti-vampire, anti-imprint fic which includes a fair bit of bad language and general unhappiness throughout (Renesmee fans, look away now). Parts 1 and 2 are rated T, while Part 3 is rated M._

 ** _Expectations:_** _I have a decent amount of this already drafted. Let's start the first half with a promise of at least two updates a week. I can't be trusted with setting chapter limits or lengths, so I won't._

 ** _Thanks:_** _My top banana mate **a soul of thunder** , who was willing to indulge me in this after I threw myself at her Skype doorstep and who only asked for Jacob-related angst as payment._

 ** _Disclaimer(s):_** _There are some direct line lifts from Breaking Dawn, which help for reflective moments and prologues, but lifts and verbatim will not be marked because that's a waste of time. I have no rights to the Twilight Saga or the novels. I've not read this type of scenario written for this pairing before, but I am probably not the first to tackle it and I make no claims of originality._

* * *

 **now & then**

* * *

 **part 1: leah clearwater**

* * *

 _you know, leah, you might want to think a little bit about the future, about what you really want to do. my head is not going to be the happiest place on earth. and you'll have to suffer right along with me._

 _jacob black, "breaking dawn"_

* * *

 **prologue**

* * *

She's scuffing her new boots by marking obscene patterns into the gravel driveway when a black car jerks to a stop beside her. Its tinted windows are half-down, and through them a familiar earthy scent drifts as Jacob leans across and throws the passenger door wide.

 _Finally._

If Embry was still around, she might have had a running bet with him on how long it was going to take for this to happen — for Jacob to well and truly _snap_. But despite this new type anger in his eyes, Leah can't help but feel relieved that _finally_ she has something to look at besides pure agony. _Finally_ Jacob is getting himself out.

"Where are we going?"

" _Does it matter?_ "

Leah blinks, unfazed by his tone, and says, "No."

Because it doesn't. Where he goes, she follows. It is the promise she made when she joined his Pack, and then again when she became his Second.

Jacob is like-minded. His loyalty to his Pack — to her — is what keeps him waiting just long enough for her to sink into the leather seat beside him before he slams his foot back onto the gas and makes for the highway.


	2. you've made your choice

_you've got nothing left except your sorrows / there's no better place to start_

 _window view, "continents"_

* * *

 **chapter 1.**

 _"you've made your choice."_

* * *

Leah props her boots up on the dash and turns her burning nose towards the open window. The car stinks.

"Did you swipe the key, or did Cullen give it to you?"

Jacob's knuckles crack in answer as they tighten around the steering wheel — or maybe it's actually the wheel itself breaking, but she doesn't chance a glance at him to check. Instead, she thinks about the fantastic piece of totally offensive artwork she's left for the bloodsuckers trailing all the way down their drive. She hopes he didn't ruin it too much when he stole one of their cars.

He's been driving for an hour now and, though his breath is a little steadier and they're finally on the right side of the road, no longer in danger of a head-on collision, he doesn't ease his foot from the floor; he pushes the car to its absolute limit so that Forks will soon be far, far behind them, and even further than that.

Perhaps she should be wearing her seat belt, she thinks, wolf or not. Perhaps she should be keeping an ear out for sirens. She'll laugh for days if Charlie is the one to catch them.

* * *

 _Imprinting hadn't healed Jacob's fractured heart. It had shattered it beyond repair._

 _At the line where the forest touched the lawn, where they waited for Bella to return from her first shit show of a hunting trip, he made sure to hang around just long enough to reassure himself that she wasn't going to rip her teeth into the monster baby. Then he'd turned on his heel and disappeared with a speed that made even the bitch and her husk of a husband blink in shock._

 _Seth sprinted after him, of course, ("Jake, wait, **please** — it's still Bella, nothing's changed!"), while Leah remained firm, steeling herself against the suckers. Unlike her little brother, she understood that it hadn't been Bella's red eyes and blood-stained dress which had made Jacob bolt, just as she understood that neither was it all because of the baby he'd been so actively avoiding for the past two days. _

_But Bella did not understand. She tried to follow, stopped not by Cullen's marble hand but Leah's outrageous snarl._

 _" **No.** You don't get to be sad because he's finally learnt how to walk away." Crimson eyes watched her carefully as she tried to crack a frozen heart with her words, but it was so hard to remember how to be human around them when the threat of what they were made her blood pound in her ears and her voice shake. "You've made your choice. Now — just **leave him the hell alone** and live with it, alright?" _

_Cullen snarled beside Bella, but Leah wasn't finished. It wasn't like it was the first time she was accusing them of ruining Jacob's life, but it was the first time that her words wouldn't make Bella cry. (Bella had been her own fucking water tower. Before.)_

 _"Though I guess you can't even do **that** , being a corpse and all."_

 _Bella's stone face finally crumpled. "He's still my best friend."_

 _"No," Leah spat again, her warm skin prickling as someone phased in between the trees. Jacob, maybe, finally giving into his rage. His shift of forms disturbed both the air and her concentration, despite standing on two legs, and for a moment she forgot her anger. "Not anymore. That girl is dead."_

* * *

The autumn sun has just reached its height and is valiantly peeking through the clouds when Jacob finally stops.

Leah watches as he prises his hands from the steering wheel, one by one, finger by finger, every movement an effort.

"What now?" she asks when his hands eventually fall into his lap and ball into shaking fists.

Jake jerks his head to the glove box in front of her, his lips pressed tight and his eyes dark with emotion.

She reaches forward to flick it open, and almost chokes on a breath _—_ not at the cell phone which falls out and is a big as her hand, but at the mound of full and straining money clips. She's never seen so many notes, let alone _a fucking hundred dollar bill_ before, and she wonders how many times she'll spot Benjamin Franklin's printed face. She'll probably lose count. _Shit._ She knew the bloodsuckers were rich, but _—_

Leah stops staring, abruptly all too aware of being in public and nervous as if somebody might see what she's unknowingly smuggled across the state line _._ The gas station isn't as suspicious or dreary-looking as the ones back home, but they're in a big city which means Big Trouble. She _really_ doesn't need a fight today.

She snaps the compartment shut, unsettled.

Jake doesn't seem so surprised, but the sharp sound seems to have sparked something inside of him back to life for the moment because he manages to say, "He said there'd be enough for a full tank."

"How many tanks?" She means to be funny, but she knows they're suddenly both considering the idea of carrying on. Of not looking back. They've reached Portland in less than four hours; they could probably reach Crescent City by nightfall. San Francisco the next day. San Diego the next.

Jacob doesn't answer. He knows he only has to say the words and that she will go wherever he needs, because a part of her unwavering loyalty is built upon an understanding to never ask for anything she cannot give. And she can do this. For him.

Perhaps it's wise of him not to answer, she thinks, as she reaches over and takes the key from the ignition. She doesn't think he'd leave without her, but she knows that if it were the other way around he wouldn't exactly be trusting her to wait for him.

"C'mon, then."

She prises Benjamin Franklin from one of the silver clasps before she gets out and while he starts filling the tank, she fills two baskets of food and drink. She might refuse to eat anything the Mother Leech-Not-Hen makes them, and she might turn her nose up at the offer of their clothes, but she has absolutely no qualms about spending their money; they don't owe her as much as they owe Jacob, but they owe her _something_.

The cashier looks at her shabby, torn clothes which expose her shoulders and her thighs, and then at the single note she holds. Even with two full baskets, there's enough left over to pay for the gas.

Leah winks, and waits for her change.

* * *

 _It was strange and unsettling, being in a Pack so small — even after Embry had added to their numbers by defecting to their side when the threat of an all-out war had been vanquished. Leah had become frighteningly attuned to each of them, and could feel every single one of their emotions so strongly that nowadays she tended to spend most of her wolf hours feeling as if her heart was going to burst. Apparently, less was indeed more._

 _Maybe it was because she was free of Sam, and no longer solely focused on causing him grief. Maybe it was because she had slipped into the role of Second without even realising it and now flanked Jacob's right shoulder, and because that kind of position came hand in hand with great responsibility over them all._

 _There was Seth, who couldn't stop smiling even though they were sort-of living with the enemy; she only ever saw white teeth or white fangs when he was around. But she loved him, unconditionally, as family and as Pack, which were one and the same. And now there was Embry, who was over the moon to be reunited with his best friend no matter the circumstances; wherever Jake was, he was not far behind. Leah supposed that she loved him, too, but it was more like having no choice to love an infuriating sibling. And then there was Jacob, every inch of him spent and utterly broken; he had never been so quiet in all the years she had known him. Leah loved him the most._

 _And while she accused Bella of ruining his life, she knew that the changed red-eyed girl had finally figured out as much. So Leah did the only thing she was better at than causing pain — she went one step too far. Deflect. Distract. She told the truth._

 _(It had worked. Too well, maybe, but at least Bella's icy heart erupted in fire. Pain. Anger. **Good**.)_

 _When Jacob only came back to pull her away, on four legs and huge jaw snapping, Leah knew that he had probably worked it out, too._

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _I love ya, Sentinel._


	3. good riddance to bad rubbish

_do you know what your fate is? are you trying to shake it?_

 _one republic, "say (all i need)"_

* * *

 **chapter 2.**

 _"good riddance to bad rubbish."_

* * *

"Kinda losing daylight here, Jake." Leah throws an empty bottle of Coke onto the back seat, where it joins the empty bag of Cheetos. She'd finished them long before Jacob found it in himself to start the engine, but he's only made it as far as the exit and now there's a small impatient queue forming behind them. "Are we going back or not?"

It's several, tense seconds before he spits something which sounds like, " _Not_ ," through his teeth, but perhaps it's her own wishful thinking. Either way, it's good enough for her _—_ she's not quite ready to go back after only four hours, either.

"Alright then. In that case, you might want to try going right _—_ " (because right is south, and everywhere he does not want to be but feels compelled to go is the other way) " _—_ not left." She points to the blinking turn signal as someone from behind hits their horn again.

Jacob's eyes flicker down to the light, apparently not realising what he's done. He swallows thickly as he flicks the lever back.

* * *

 _Head down and muttering darkly, Jake was still a little feral as he stalked back and forth along the bank of the river. He hadn't even thought to put his shorts back on. "You shouldn't have done that."_

 _Leah kept her chin high, defiant and not even a little bit sorry. "You didn't stop me."_

 _"I did."_

 _"Only when the bitch went for my neck."_

 _His head snapped up at that, and Leah wasn't sure whether it was because he didn't really believe Bella really would have had his Second for dinner, or because she'd called Bella a bitch._

 _"You shouldn't have told her about the imprint."_

 _"She was going to find out anyway."_

 _Sure, Leah wasn't too thrilled about nearly dying, about Jake and Cullen having to save her ass from the venom that was as good as poison to the Quileute wolves, but she was glad that she was the one who'd told Bella exactly how it was her fault another choice had been taken from **her** Alpha._

 _(And though she was nineteen and old enough to know better, she was also glad that in between Bella snapping at her jugular she managed to add in that, logically, Edward shouldn't even have been able to get it up; she'd been dying to say that out loud for **weeks**.)_

* * *

Every passing mile drags Jake further and further into silence, but at least they're moving. He'd only pulled out of the gas station because an irritated woman had stuck her head through the window and demanded what the hell his problem was, but maybe it was also because Leah had leant across his trembling arms and was ready to give the blonde a _real_ problem. Whether Leah was finally looking for a fight or not, keeping Jacob in the Here and Now and on _two_ feet is her main priority. She can only imagine how much harder his fight will become if he phases, because it's not the man who wants Renesmee _—_ it's the wolf.

Within the hour, they're flying through Salem (he'd turned right _—_ thank God) and Jacob keeps his foot down. Leah's all too aware that if they're picked up they have absolutely nothing to show for themselves except a disgusting amount of cash, so she's somewhat grateful that he seems to step on the brake as little as possible while she works her way through the soda and the food.

She still hasn't asked what caused him to finally snap so fiercely that she's beginning to think they'll never see Washington again, but it doesn't stop her trying to get him to talk to her. She chatters endlessly, until she can see the signs for Crescent City. Not to annoy him, but because she'd want somebody to distract her if she was thinking about doing something stupid _—_ like turning the car around and being miserable for the rest of her life.

Of course, there is the chance that maybe Jacob _wouldn't_ be miserable if he went back. Maybe he'd find peace, if he submitted to the imprint. Maybe he could be as happy as his brothers, if he let himself. But Leah understands, perhaps better than anybody else, that for Jacob, having a choice is as important to him as having air to breathe. And surrendering himself to the big matchmaker in the sky is _not_ his choice.

* * *

 _"I can't do it," he said again, and again, dragging his hands through his hair as he continued to pace along the riverbank. "I can't. I won't."_

 _She listened as his words steadily turned incoherent, and wished that Sam had his strength._

* * *

"You think if we stopped and got another bag of Cheetos and smeared them into the carpets that it would make the smell better?" Keeping the windows down all day has done nothing for the burn in her nose. "What about if we ripped them out?"

He doesn't say anything, but she thinks she sees his lips twitch.

"Whose car is it anyway? Because if it's Fang's, I might only spill some Dr Pepper. If it's Cullen's, I'll definitely go with the Cheetos. But if it's Blondie's… Well, I'll set it on fire and we can just walk to wherever the hell we're going," Leah continues, knowing that she's mostly talking to herself as she rips open the M&Ms. "Good riddance to bad rubbish, and all that. I'm sure we can buy something else with all that money, anyway. An old, unreliable ugly thing without power steering that breaks down every fifty miles."

"I could always fix it," Jake offers quietly.

Leah is triumphant; her senseless, endless chattering has worked, and she can't help her wide smile. "Where are the matches?"


	4. unconditionally and unquestionably

_i haven't lost my hope / even though i am so far from my home_

 _lissie, "wild west"_

* * *

 **chapter 3.**

 _unconditionally and unquestionably_

* * *

When they make it to Crescent City just before the sun sets, again Jacob seems only able to move his hands from the steering wheel so that he can ball them into fists. (It's an improvement from the gas station, though. It only takes him one minute to let go, rather than three.)

"C'mon," Leah says, deciding to take the key out of the ignition for a second time, because maybe he really won't go anywhere without her but neither does she trust him to be on his own. He has other ways of escaping, after all, but thankfully she doesn't have to plead with him to follow her to the seafront because the car still stinks to high heaven and they've been suffering inside of it for most of the day.

When Jacob stands on the sand and stares at the crashing waves in the orange light, his face twists with a manic emotion she hopes she'll never, ever understand.

"It's still not far enough," he says, battling with the invisible force that screams for him to go back _—_ to protect, and to love unconditionally and unquestionably. To be whatever _she_ needs.

When Leah stands closer to him so that their hands touch, she tells herself it's to stop him from bolting down the beach and all the way back to Forks.

"So we'll go even further," she tells him.

* * *

 _"You've got to go back to Sam."_

 _Seth snorted. "Here we go again."_

 _Embry whined, loud and childish. "But I've only just got here!"_

 _"You've got no reason to be. It's done. You're going."_

 _Leah pretended that she wasn't listening. She pretended that her heart wasn't singing with pure, undiluted fear, and hadn't been since Jake had called them together once he'd finally stopped making tracks along the riverbank. He'd promised, he'd promised. Where he goes, she goes. Alpha and Second. He'd promised._

 _While Embry and Seth continued to argue, Leah finally caught Jake's eye and thought that she could have been sick with relief when he gave a subtle shake of his head which she knew meant something like, "No — not you."_

 _She willed her heart into a less frantic beat, but still felt a little sick when Seth and Embry threw her looks of ultimate betrayal when they crossed the border separating Home and Here, to where Sam waited with Paul — his new Second — on the other side. She was staying. It was fine. Seth would be just fine._

 _Then she saw Sam looking longingly at her, and thought that she might empty her stomach after all. She remembered when he'd made Jared use her old nickname to try and get her back behind his lines, and when Jacob had just simply said, "Leah belongs wherever she wants to be."_

 _And she did — she belonged **here** , with Jacob, who grabbed her hand and growled ferociously at Sam as he rose to the challenge presented to him. He was defiant, and protective. It was the first real emotion she had seen since Bella's heart had stopped beating._

 _Leah's fingers tightened around Jacob's as she stared back at Sam and didn't apologise._

* * *

With sand in their shoes, they hover at the foreign car which _still_ reeks _—_ it hasn't mattered that they've left it in the parking lot with its windows still down to welcome in the sea breeze. Neither has it seemed to have mattered that they left it unlocked, because it's late and unfortunately there's nobody stupid enough to steal it from them.

Leah offers the key back to him, but Jake shakes his head and wordlessly climbs into the passenger seat.

So she picks up their journey south. Jacob is asleep within minutes, and it strikes her that she can't remember the last time he slept. For the past few days he's been awake when she shuts her eyes and he's been awake when she opens them again. She silently vows to do better by him, as his Second and as his Pack.

When the cell phone in the glove box starts ringing in the darkness, she nearly sends the car off the road. Jacob's snoring, however, remains steady.

 _Not far enough. Not far enough._

When the dashboard tells her they've only ten miles of fuel left, she looks with burning eyes for the next twenty-four-seven motel.

The phone is still ringing.

Nine miles. Eight. Seven.

When she finally finds a place to stop, Jake's dead on his feet when she stuffs half of the money into his pants and the other half in the band of her rotten shorts.

 _Not far enough. Not far enough._

He's barely conscious as she drags him around the complex by his hand and takes him as far as the bed. Only after she locks the door and shoves one of the tables up against it in lieu of an intruder alarm does she fall onto the other mattress. The sleezeball behind the front desk had seen Benjamin Franklin.


	5. you shouldn't have to

_i know how it feels to be alone / and where we go is where i wanna be_

 _lifehouse, "by your side"_

* * *

 **chapter 4.**

 _"you shouldn't have to."_

* * *

When Leah wakes up, Jacob's not there.

* * *

 _She tried not to think about what would happen if she was caught trespassing when she made a plan to go back to the Rez to see her mom. La Push was her **home** , after all, despite the little fact that she was technically homeless, and the note she'd left before she'd followed Seth didn't seem to suffice for what she was about to do next. It wasn't Bella fucking Swan's rights she was defending this time, and her mom deserved better. _

* * *

She breaks his nose when he comes back. The coffee he's bought spills onto the cheap, faded carpet, and his blood stains the new shirt on his back.

She couldn't care less. She's been awake for hours, staring at the table he'd moved and the door he'd left unbolted, her chest heaving and her stomach rolling. She doesn't care that he's got new clothes for her, too. She doesn't care that there's shampoo and soap and a hairbrush in the bag. She doesn't care that cans of her favourite soda are weighing it down.

"Leave a note next time," she snarls, and she slams the bathroom door behind her.

* * *

 _"You're not staying, are you?"_

 _"I need to stay with him for a while. I'm sorry," she said, though she knew her mom wasn't looking for any sort of apology._

 _"I know, honey."_

 _Leah cried because her mom had always understood her fierce love and her unwavering loyalty — after all, it was she who taught her about such things — and she felt her mom watching with pride as she walked away with a new haircut and a new pair of boots. She didn't bother to dry her face as she eventually made her way to Jacob, who was waiting anxiously for her at the boundary line._

 _He tensed when he saw the colour of her cheeks, but knew better than to comment. She'd told him where she was going, what she needed to do, and he'd not put up much of a fight other than to insist he stay as close as he possibly could. She was grateful; they already understood one another, and in turn she kept her smart remarks to herself while he looked a little too closely at her red eyes, his own laced with strange concern and frustration which made her bristle._

 _"I can feel him nearby. He knows we're here," Jacob said when he finally pulled away, and so they ran back to the riverbank with a newfound burst of speed. Jacob and Sam had made their peace, but there had never been two dominant wolves leading separate Packs before and their wolves were eager to spit out one another's fur. As a result, the new Pack had nowhere to go, no real territory to call their own, and so they were forced to keep to the river until Edward appeared._

* * *

The table is back against the now bolted door and he's sitting on the edge of her bed, waiting. Not for an apology — he knows better than to expect one, but there's a pair of shorts and an olive-green tank top folded beside him which might be serving as an apology of his own.

Leah rubs a towel over her wet hair and looks anywhere but him.

"Leah?" he asks quietly. He knows exactly what he'd done to her by leaving, because she'd not kept quiet when she'd gripped the sides of the sink and hurled until there was nothing left. "Do you think I should go back?"

She throws the towel over her shoulder so he can wipe the dried blood from his face, and makes a show of rooting through the plastic bag of toiletries and soda as she says, "I think you shouldn't have to do anything — anything _else_ , that you don't want to do. Ever."

"What about you?"

She can feel his gaze burning into the back of her head, but she keeps herself turned away because she doesn't want him to see the mangled look on her face. "If you want to go back, Jake," she tells him slowly, and very deliberately, "then I'll go with you. Someone needs to make sure you don't turn into a complete sap."

"And if I don't?"

"If you don't want to go back, it doesn't change anything."

One beat. Two. "Then no. Not _—_ not yet. I can stand it a while longer."

Leah sighs, and finally meets his eyes. "You shouldn't have to, Jake."

"You shouldn't have had to, either," he says quietly as he goes to take his own shower.

* * *

 _Leah suspected Cullen had been waiting for them — for Jacob, who had recently held all the answers to all of his fucking problems._

 _She would stand for it no longer. "We don't want to be a part of your psych experiment anymore, so do us a favour and fuck off."_

 _"I didn't come here to be insulted," the bloodsucker said from the treeline._

 _"Oh, yeah? Where do you usually go?"_

 _She heard Cullen take a few breaths — totally unnecessary of the lifeless prick — and if she'd taken her eyes off the running water to actually look at him she imagined she would have seen him pinching the bridge of his nose like her dad used to when — **no** , they were different, the bloodsucker was nothing like —_

 _"Jacob, please. Renesmee won't stop crying."_

 _The other half of Leah's Pack stiffened beside her — Jake wouldn't look at him, either — and suddenly she understood why he had been so restless even before she'd left to see her mom. He'd stayed nearby the line for another reason entirely, as far as he could get without triggering a fight._

 _"It's not our problem, Leech," Leah said, just as Jake sighed and moved to stand up. She grabbed at his hand. " **No**. You don't have to."_

 _"Yeah. I do." With another sigh, he gave a firm squeeze of her fingers before pulling free. "Don't go anywhere."_

 _She wondered where he thought she might have to go, and didn't realise until much later what it really was that he was asking of her._

* * *

 ** _Return of the A/N:_** _Thank you everyone who has so far favourited, followed and reviewed. Notifications are my most favourite thing. And Sentinel, honey, know that I'm living only for your emails. Maybe this really is being written for you after all._


	6. it doesn't matter

_i will learn to love the skies i'm under_

 _mumford & sons, "hopeless wanderer"_

* * *

 **chapter 5.**

 _"it doesn't matter."_

* * *

Jake asks her to drive. (" _My nose is broken, I can't see,"_ is the lame excuse, though she'd heard him crack it back into place by the time she'd been washing her hair and the sick from her face. He might have not phased for a few days now but it'll take a lot more effort than _that_ to be able to give him black eyes from stunted healing abilities.)

Leah keeps them between the eastern ocean and the tempting western National Forests all the way to Sacramento _—_ a healthy balance, she reasons, though no matter how long they keep the windows down for she can still smell _them_.

By the way he grips the leather seat and clenches his teeth, she knows that it's still not far enough. She's not sure whether it ever will be.

* * *

 _When she heard Jacob dragging himself back towards her, she was sitting on their bank with her feet in the water._

 _He sat beside her, his movements slow and painful before he let out a ragged breath. She knew what it had cost him to go into that house, but could not imagine how much harder it might have been for him to pull himself away after so long of keeping his distance._

 _"Feet," she said, and he let her pull off his battered shoes before he stretched his toes out next to hers in the water and began to talk._

 _He told her that the baby leech had stopped crying when he walked through the door. She'd been complaining of being cold._

 _Leah mumbled something about breaking the treaty instead of the imprint._

 _He said that he hated himself for feeling like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders when he'd seen her._

 _Leah didn't answer, angry because he was only sixteen — it was so easy to forget that he was so young when his eyes spoke of things he shouldn't have yet known about, and when his body moved like Old Quil. It made her so angry that she had to sit on her hands and fight the overwhelming need to phase which compelled her to defend her Alpha._

 _Jake told her that he hadn't asked her to come with him because he didn't want her to see the look on his face he knew he wouldn't be able to control. He needed to show Strength and Stability, he said, because he was an Alpha no matter the size of his Pack._

 _Leah remembered the first time she saw Sam looking at Emily, and said that she'd seen worse things._

* * *

They go further and further and further, stopping only to fill the tank, to eat in strange diners and to sleep in cheap twenty-four-seven motels, and once to buy some more clothes, until they find themselves as far south as they can go without having their passports. Leah throws the cell phone into the Tijuana River, and then she steers Jake east. Further and further and further.

Sometimes Leah drives for whole afternoons and late into the night. She always makes sure to pass through little towns at a crawling pace, which annoys Jake to no end, but she likes the tiny shops and seeing people wave at each other on the streets.

Sometimes Jacob drives for only a few hours before exhaustion creeps up on him and he lets his head fall back on the passenger seat, but when he's at the wheel and sees signs for Phoenix he avoids it with a different sort of determination, and he doesn't speak to her for several hours afterwards.

Leah hates the strange diners they eat in, though he enjoys leaving a ginormous tip to see the server's face (just because he can, and also because it's not his money).

Jacob likes seeing how the gas stations are different, whereas she gets pissed off at the way some people look at them with a confused frown and then at the expensive car which has thousands and thousands of pounds of body armour (or so Jake said — she had been more interested in that he was having a good day and not sitting beside her like he was being tortured, rather than the way he explained with great excitement about the Mercedes, or whatever it was).

She always bolts the door at the motel. He's always there when she wakes up, and he never leaves the room without her.

By the end of the week they're in Texas, where they spend five days leisurely dawdling across the state and even spend two nights in the same motel. He likes the sun. She likes the coast.

When they're sitting in front of the car in Rockport, Leah finally asks him what made him leave.

"Renes — _she…_ I was so careful to—" Jacob gulps and roughly pushes the heel of his palm against his forehead. "I just — I couldn't do it."

Leah reaches out for his other hand, and curls her fingers around his. Though it's been happening a little less in recent days, she can't stand it when he's in so much pain he can't even finish a sentence, so she decides not to push him.

"I'm sorry," she tells him, forcing herself to turn her eyes on the darkening horizon rather than watch what she's done to him. She can't help but feel she's just ruined something. "It doesn't matter."

But it does matter, she thinks, when he pulls his hand away and she feels him scramble to his feet beside her, because she's screwed up and she's let him down. And there is nobody else in the world she hates as much as she hates herself when she hears his clothes rip to shreds.


	7. because he's jacob

_some days i rage like a fire in the wilderness / some days i only need the darkness and a place to rest_

 _keane, "tear up this town"_

* * *

 **chapter 6.**

 _because he's jacob_

* * *

 _Each time someone came looking for help with the crying sprog, Jake asked her to stay behind._

 _The tiny psychic came after Cullen. Then the mother. And each time, Leah grabbed his hand. While she fought against the phase which threatened to shred the only clothes she had, she told him that he didn't have to go_ , _but he always sighed and said that yes, he did._

 _The third time they smelt a member of the tick family nearby, Jacob ran. Leah made sure to take off her new boots and ditch her clothes with only seconds to spare before the phase overwhelmed her and she followed him, and they spent the night deep in the forest, far away from Forks and far away from La Push._

 _She never spoke of the way he had kept his fingers buried in her grey fur until the sun rose, and he never spoke of the way she'd curled around him as he'd sobbed._

* * *

Leah knows that, despite their promises to one another, sometimes Jake just doesn't want to be followed.

Angry tears furiously prick at her eyes as she stalls for time, even going as far to clear all of the rubbish they've left from the back seat of the car. As she gets rid of the Cheetos bag, she remembers when they'd been a few states back and he'd told her that on the day she'd broken his nose he had not actually dared to go further than a mile away from her, and she'd believed him. She didn't apologise for breaking his nose, though. Maybe when he comes back this time she will.

 _If_ he comes back. She might be stalling for nothing.

She hangs around, anyway, sitting in the now clean car as she waits at the edge of Rockport with every door and window wide open, until it's late enough that she's thoroughly convinced herself that she's not going to see him again.

Getting herself to the next motel only seven miles away isn't easy. But she refuses to sleep in the car or on unfamiliar land, so she forces herself to put her foot down, now trying to convince herself that she would have only made it worse if she'd phased and followed him. Jake had made a conscious effort, even before, to make sure that he kept his mind private from her, and it would seem like the ultimate betrayal if she denied him that now after everything they have been through — after all they have done for one another.

Leah hadn't expected it to be easy, running away (because there wasn't really another way to say what they'd done) and actually _staying_ away. But when she'd launched the phone into the river and Jake had thrown his head back and laughed so loudly that the people nearby looked their way, a part of her had thought that they'd gotten past the worst of it. That they'd done the hardest part — _together_ — and everything else would now be just a little bit easier.

For a while, it was. She's the worst fucking person ever.

She's blinked away her tears by the time she closes the tinted windows and locks the car for the first time since they left Washington. A few minutes later, without even thinking about her words, she's asked for a twin room. The middle-aged man at the desk takes one look at her and the two one-hundred-dollar notes she pays with, and says that if she'd like to stay an extra night all she has to do is let him know before noon.

"Sure, sure," she mumbles, and she drags her feet to the room, wondering if this was what Jacob felt like when he drove away from Forks. Everything hurts.

When she closes the door behind her, she doesn't lock it. Sometimes she just stares at it. Sometimes she stares the old television set flickering in the dark until it makes her eyes hurt. It's not like the first time, when her chest had been heaving and her stomach had been rolling. Now, she sits on the bed barely moving, barely feeling, as failure buries itself a hole, right beside her guilt and everything else she hates about herself.

* * *

 _When Jake eventually peeled himself from the forest floor, Leah knew they were going back. She stayed close to him until they crossed into Bloodsucker Territory, enough to make sure that she could break his fall if he were to double-over again, before tearing off towards the water._

 _New clothes were laid out by the dirty heap she'd dumped next to her boots in her hurry, and she made a show of tearing them with her claws before phasing and pulling on her shorts. Whoever had come for Jake the night before had followed — their scent was all over the trail they'd left from the riverbank all the way up to the boundary line._

 _"They're not gonna leave you alone," Leah told him when he finally appeared next to her and began eyeing the shredded clothes._

 _"I know," was all he said, resigned and angry and sad and exhausted, and then he picked up each scrap of fabric and dropped them into the water._

* * *

Sleep is impossible.

What if he's stuck between _Here_ and _There_ , tearing at his own skin because half of him wants to go one way but the other part of him wants to come back? Because _of course_ he wants to come back _—_ Leah's absolutely sure of it, even if it's only a very small part of himself; she feels the exact same way about keeping herself in the room and leaving it behind to track his sorry ass down.

What if he needs help? What if he really wanted _— needed_ her to go after him?

Leah tries to push away guilt and shame, and she struggles to remember loyalty and promises which have so far kept her from going to find him. It's downright unnerving for any Pack parted, let alone just the two of them, because for as long as they are bonded as such it will always be this way. It will always be this way after she gathers the nerve to stop phasing and finally leaves this life behind. It will always be this way not because he's Pack, but because he's _Jacob._

Jacob. Not Alpha. So Leah waits, because she'd want someone to wait for her. She waits, because she can't think about what will happen or what he might do if he comes back and she's not here.

She waits until just before noon, when she goes back to the front desk and pays for another night.

Then she runs across the flat Texan plains to the place in little town where they'd sat in front of the car and then back again. One huge, clean sweep, pushing herself to go faster until sweat drenches her neck and her back because this is something she _can_ do. This is familiar, and she tells herself that it's just a patrol. A precaution. Something entirely normal and yet from a past life. It's just running.

With an extra burst of speed, she vows that she will vehemently deny to the world and their mother, and even herself, that she's leaving tracks for him to pick up and follow so he can find her.

* * *

 _When he was pulled away — by Cullen again, this time — she went for a run. Right up to the treaty line, where she walked twenty purposeful paces across it, sat down, and waited._


	8. this isn't shit i can sort out

_you've held your head up, you've fought the fight / you bear the scars, you've done your time_

 _the civil wars, "dust to dust"_

* * *

 **chapter 7.**

 _"this isn't shit i can sort out."_

* * *

It's dark again by the time Jacob pushes the door open.

Leah stares at him from her place on the bed as he limps through. Red marks cover his naked skin, already fading alongside his matching bruises, and every single one of his hairs seems to be standing up on end. She wants to tell him that he looks like shit and give him absolute hell for it, but instead she gets up and herds him into the bathroom, much like she remembers her mother herding him from the garage he'd holed himself up in after Sarah Black died.

"If you have to leave again," she tells him as she pushes his shoulders down, forcing him to sit on the toilet, "and if you need space, that's fine. I get it, Jake, I really do, but I can't fucking deal with not knowing if you're coming back once you sort your shit out."

She turns on the shower, and pulls the curtain across with a little more force than necessary.

"I thought you'd _—_ "

" _No,_ Jake," she tries to say without clenching her teeth. He doesn't need her anger right now, no matter how much she wants to break his jaw instead of his nose. This is a Talk. Not a Tirade. "This isn't shit I can sort out for you. I want to, but I can't. And I knew that you probably didn't want me to have front row tickets to the show while you had a go at doing it yourself, so I didn't come after you."

He keeps his head ducked as she puts a fresh towel next to the sink and fusses with it needlessly. He doesn't need to see her sadness, either.

"And if I had," Leah continues after a minute, "you probably would have phased back and I still wouldn't have known where you were anyway."

"I'm _—_ "

"Clean yourself up, Jake. I'll find some clothes."

* * *

 _Sam tied the string of his shorts as he approached. On four legs, Paul and Quil stood guard nearby._

 _"You know, technically, you're trespassing," he said as he came to sit close enough beside her that she could feel his warmth._

 _She wanted to rip his head from his shoulders when he stretched his legs out in front of him and leant back on his palms, purposefully displaying his bare chest, but she didn't dare turn her head and instead began a staring match with the silver wolf who did nothing but growl._

 _"What's up, Leah? Are you ready to come home?"_

 _"Are you still in charge?"_

 _"Yes."_

 _"Then no."_

* * *

Jake looks a lot like the sixteen-year-old he should be as he stands between the two beds which look like they haven't been slept in. His bruises have nearly gone completely, and there's only a few lines left marking his arms, but his heavy eyes are unsure and worried as he looks at her.

Leah understands. She shuffles over to the edge of her mattress, and wordlessly they arrange themselves around each other. She doesn't protest when he pulls her close and buries his face into her hair, because there's a lot more to being Chief and Alpha and Jacob than even she knows yet.

"How far did you get?"

"Wyoming," he answers guiltily, but it's better than Montana, she thinks. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry I broke your nose," she says against his shirt. Better late than never.

* * *

 _Sam sighed. She could still feel his eyes on her, but kept her own trained on Paul. "Your mom's worried."_

 _She snorted. "Nice try." She wondered if he knew she'd **technically** trespassed twice by now, but didn't bring attention to her new boots. "Are you going to pull the Billy card next? Because I know you've probably told him that he's got a damn leech for a daughter-in-law by now."_

 _"He wasn't happy. But no. I was going to try telling you how much you smell, next. None of the Cullen's fifty bathrooms to your liking, huh?"_

* * *

"I don't know how to explain it."

"Try, Jacob."

He's quiet for a long while, though his hold on her doesn't slacken as he tries to find the words he's been sitting on since he made the choice to walk away. He swallows harshly. Once. Twice. "It's like _—_ y'know when you phase, and… I've suddenly got all these things in my head. Like you. Strings, that tie you to everyone. You know when they've phased, even if they're ten miles away. You know if they're safe, and if they're not then you're ready to cause some serious damage because it's not just your senses which are amplified. It's feelings, too, isn't it? The same as how you started feeling for everyone… and _what_ you started feeling for everyone as soon as you became my Second."

She's glad he can't see her face. He hasn't ever acknowledged the way she feels for him, even if only in the beginning it was simply pure, undying loyalty for an Alpha who made her feel like she finally belonged somewhere.

"It was still all there when you were on two legs, wasn't it? Not as intense, maybe, but when someone pulled on those ties, you felt it, didn't you?"

Leah nods into his chest, because even now Jacob's pain is her pain, as is his joy and his sorrow. She knew the moment she raced over the treaty line that she would follow him for the rest of her life, and for as long as they are together, for as long as they are a Pack, and perhaps even long after that, it will not change.

"For me, it's the same. But worse, because I'm an Alpha. I can _feel_ you just as strongly no matter what shape I am. When I made Seth and Embry go back to Sam… as soon as Sam accepted them as his Pack, they just disappeared. It scared the living shit out of me, and then I saw Sam looking at you in the way he knows it really fucking _hurts_ you, and I just lost it."

She remembers the way Jake had grabbed her, and how she'd found the strength to look into Sam's eyes without feeling sorry for herself. She wonders what he felt last night, while she hadn't been able to make sense of much.

"But I s'pose I was already losing it," Jake continues. He's trying so damn hard to help her understand that there's this new ache in her chest, and she doesn't interrupt because this is the only time she's ever going to hear these words _—_ she will never ask him to explain again. Just this once. "I was struggling to get through the day even before Bella's spine broke. And then _—_ " Jake takes a huge breath, as if steadying himself, and his fingers dig into her back before he says, " _—_ she gave birth, and then I had this extra string in my head that pulled and pulled and _—_ and all of a sudden everything I felt for everyone else seemed like a flimsy elastic band in comparison. Like none of you mattered. Not my Pack, not my family, not Bella… not even Sam's Pack. And I wasn't _—_ as Jacob, as _me_ , I wasn't okay with that. But _she_ kept pulling and pulling."

And she still is. Leah can't help the growl which escapes into the fabric of his shirt, nor the way her whole body seems to shudder, but Jake's arms tighten around her and somehow _he's_ the one consoling _her_.

"They knew," she says, voice muffled but unquestionably downright furious. "Fucking Cullen _knew_ what you were thinking. He _knew_ how it made you feel and he still asked you to _—_ "

"I know. But he never really cared about what he was asking. Or how much. That's part of why I left."

* * *

 _Sam ran a rough hand over his face. "Why are you really here, Leah?"_

 _"I needed to ask you something. About breaking an imprint."_

 _Something caught in his throat. "Lee, I—"_

 _"Not you," she says quickly. **That** is a conversation she does not want to have. "I'm asking for Jacob."_

* * *

Leah tells him that she only half meant it when she first promised he could go where he wanted, and she would go wherever she wanted. Jake huffs a laugh, and says that he'd figured as much the moment she appeared.

He tells her that he followed her trail from Rockport. This time it is her turn to laugh, and she says she doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.

She tells him the money for another night is hidden behind the toilet if he wakes up before noon, and she sleeps for fourteen hours. When she opens her eyes, for the first time in weeks, Jacob is still sleeping.


	9. part two: prologue (jacob)

**part 2: jacob**

* * *

 _jacob, do you think this is going to take too much longer?_

 _leah clearwater, "eclipse"_

* * *

 **prologue**

* * *

 _Jacob held on tight as they watched Sam lead their brothers home._

 _"It's not too late," he told her, fighting against the rising panic that his Pack had so suddenly been cut in half — that despite all Leah said, despite how she gripped his hand in return, despite how her eyes blazed in the afternoon light, she might have wanted to follow._

 _But she stood firm as Embry shot one last look of betrayal before he disappeared into the dense cover of the forest, and said, "I'll go back if you do."_

 _"I can't."_

 _"Then neither can I."_


	10. deserving

_i've come undone / but you make sense of who i am_

 _red, "pieces"_

* * *

 **chapter 8.**

 _deserving_

* * *

The shower's running and Leah's singing when he rubs the sleep from his eyes.

"—take back your memories, they're no good to me! And here's all your _liiiiiiiiiiiies_ , you can look me in the _eyeeeeeeees_ … with the sad, sad look—"

It's way better than that damned Sheryl Crow she sang all the way from Yuma to Tucson, but it's frighteningly off-key and enough to make even ancient bloodsuckers cower. It's a wonder nobody's knocking on their door to see if the strange girl from out of town is being murdered. Still, Jacob can't bring himself to shut her up — the whole thing is so refreshingly _normal_ — and he stretches himself leisurely over the bed as she sings about hoping to give someone hell.

Him, probably, he thinks. Leah's not one for subtlety, and he deserves every single headache she stopped herself from giving him last night. Instead, she'd let him curl around her and hold on until his bones ached a little less and until the painful throbbing in his head (which had disappeared almost entirely the closer he'd gotten to Forks) had dulled to a steadier beat.

He wonders how long ago it was she finally prised herself away; the space beside him on the small mattress which he's kept open for her even in unconsciousness is cold, but the other bed on the other side of the room is still untouched and he has to fight against the lump in his throat when he realises it means she stayed with him all night.

He wonders if they will never speak of this again, like they never speak of the night in the forest after fleeing from the river.

He wonders what makes him so deserving of such loyalty from the girl with a type of anger which keeps everyone at arm's length. Leah has always been the first one to call him out on his shit — even as children, when she was seven and he was four and she'd declared herself the leader of the Boys Not Allowed Club she'd formed with his begrudging sisters (who only wanted to paint nails while she wanted to climb trees and play Truth or Dare but Mostly Dare). She had dug a hole on First Beach with Rach and Becca and pushed him into it when he cried for not being included.

The singing turns to humming as Leah turns the shower off, and it's a few more minutes before the bathroom door opens. She leans against it and looks at him critically, much in the same way that he looks at her.

Jacob knows what she'd seen when he'd finally found his way back to her, because he'd seen the same thing himself in the mirror: long but healing red marks all over his skin from where he'd scratched and bitten himself until he'd bled; the dirt from four different states on his cheeks, his arms, his knees and his feet; the shame of what he'd done clouding his bloodshot eyes. But Jacob wonders whether Leah knows what he'd seen when he'd looked at _her_ , and if she had seen it for herself.

He'd held her for hours after she'd fallen into a deep sleep, her face pressed into his chest and her fingers still clinging to the cheap shirt she'd left out for him. He'd whispered more apologies into her dark and choppy hair which tickled his nose, wishing that never again would he be responsible for the haunted look on her face but not daring to allow himself make such a promise. She had done her best to hide her sadness and her exhaustion and her anger, but ever since she'd become Pack it was hard to keep those kinds of things from him. It was even harder now that he had accepted his birthright and she was the only person in the world who he was responsible for — or at least, the only one who mattered and who he _wanted_ to be responsible for whether she thought she needed looking after or not. And she most certainly did not.

"Can we get some CDs the next time we stop?" she asks when she's finished making sure he's definitely still in the room, and he's finished making sure that he's not caused his Pack any permanent damage. He might as well head back to Forks right now if he's screwed this up.

"Sure," he says, training his eyes back on the ceiling instead of the tiny towel covering her body. It's strange that she's asking for permission first, rather than forgiveness — and she never usually does that, either. "None of that depressing soul type of music or anything, though."

Leah swipes at his feet hanging off the end of the bed as she passes. "I think we've gone past that stage, Jake."

* * *

 _"You left," he said, when she eventually found her way back to their spot at the river. He'd been unsure on how long he'd have to wait and_ _if she was even ever going to come back, and he had worried that he had finally pushed her to breaking point_ — _all the way back to Sam, where he'd not long since forced her brother and Embry to go._

 _Leah firmed her chin, unapologetic and unconcerned. "Yes. And I came back."_

 _Jacob pulled a face, and turned away. Her scent was off, like Bella's had become. Wrong. Threatening. Because Bella smelt like a bloodsucker, and Leah smelt like Sam. Both made his blood rage, and his head spin. It only became worse when she took her usual place beside him and crossed her legs. Whatever she'd done, whatever she had sought Sam out for, she'd been close to him_ — _too, too close_ — _and the wolf in him saw the insult; it thrashed and bucked against the smell of the challenge which clung to her skin and her torn, dirty clothes. Leah was **his** Second. She was **his**. Despite all his efforts and determination to fly solo, he knew he would never be without her again. It wouldn't make sense after having come so far together._

 _"What happened?" he managed to ask through clenched teeth._

 _"Kicked butt. Took names. We need to build up our reputation a bit."_

 _Leah had been making more of an effort to keep her personal feelings to herself as of late, but he knew all too well that she was as uncomfortable spending her days on Leech Land as she was watching him struggle_ — _not because she cared, but because he was her Alpha, and an unstable Pack was a vulnerable Pack. He also knew that she cared very little about her reputation, and that she wouldn't have left if she hadn't thought it worthwhile. She would not have approached Sam alone for anything less than Extremely Important._

 _Jacob turned back to her. "Hope it was worth it."_

 _"Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime," she replied. She flopped onto her back and closed her eyes, not giving him an invitation to push for a better answer._


	11. motivational speeches

_i believe you can get me through / nothing else will do_

 _daughtry, "get me through"_

* * *

 **chapter 9.**

 _motivational speeches_

* * *

It's 11:57 when they decide they're finally done with Texas. The man at the desk who Jacob hands over the key to looks with longing, disappointed eyes at Leah, whose mile-wide grin is gleefully taunting as she tucks herself underneath Jacob's arm.

"You think Pervy McBulge is gonna miss me, or my money?" she asks when they get into the car (after much shoving and pushing over who's driving).

"I think it's the shorts," Jacob says, wondering what else Leah has possibly done to the poor man that made him hang over the desk as she walked away, and she laughs as she starts the engine (she won the keys with a cheap shot) because she knows she's wearing the type of shorts which make even Paul's eyes bulge from his head.

* * *

 _"Why?" Leah asked._

 _They'd sat in silence for hours; Leah on her back with her eyes still closed, clearly struggling with something beyond anybody's help, and Jacob staring at the water, annoyed because she'd been to see Sam without him and because he was desperate to know the things she wasn't yet ready to talk about. But he wouldn't be someone who threw his weight around, who put the shackles back on her — he wouldn't be Sam, who had an order for just about everything and had driven both of them away because of it._

 _"Why put yourself through it? Why stay?"_

 _Jacob didn't have an answer. At least, not one Leah wanted to hear, and not one he wanted to admit._

 _He couldn't tell her that it hurt to simply sit, that his head throbbed constantly, because so far in Renesmee's short life she had not once been denied anything and he was doing exactly that. He couldn't tell Leah that while Renesmee looked like she was a year old already, she was a newborn who impossibly understood that she shared something with him nobody else could, and she cried all the damn time because of it._

 _He couldn't leave, because the pain would get worse and he was terrified that the twisted, daunting new thing inside of him would finally give way; he'd either come crawling back, begging for forgiveness and swearing to never be parted again, or he'd have to find a way to live with an emptiness worse than the one Seth and Embry had left. And he knew which one would be more terrible, for him and for Leah._

 _He couldn't risk it. He wouldn't._

 _Leah pulled herself up beside him. "Okay. Fine." She ran her hands through her hair with a force that pulled out a few strands and sighed loudly enough that even Cullen would probably be able to hear her irritation. "Look. I know I'm not the best person for motivational speeches. I'm more like the friend you come to when you wanna get drunk, forget your troubles and share war stories and shit like that. I'm also the kind of person who will tell you when you're being four kinds of stupid and seven kinds of fucked up and I won't care if you get your pretty pants in a twist over it."_

 _Jake scoffed and finally turned towards her. He wondered if his amusement showed. It felt strange and a little bit awful. "Seven kinds of fucked up?"_

 _"It's not a bad thing, kid. But it's bad when you let yourself be swallowed up and find yourself worse off when you're spat back out because of it. Trust me. I could write a book and stretch it into six movies."_

 _"I'm not—"_

 _Leah waved a hand. "Alright, alright. I told you I was bad at the motivational stuff. I'm shit out of vodka and I'm workin' with what I got, which is you, and me, and a bunch of vamps who like to kick a man when he's down."_

 _He couldn't disagree with that. He'd spent the last two hours waiting for his summons, hoping that Leah's frustrations would eventually exhaust her and that she'd be asleep when he dragged his feet towards the house with his tail in between his legs._

 _"What I'm trying to say — and yeah, I know you don't want to hear it. I know you think I'm a fat hypocrite. It's just nobody else will say it." She paused to take a deep, steadying breath, letting her words sink in before continuing. "I need you to stop letting them kick you, Jake. At some point, you're gonna have to decide if we stick around until… well, whenever, or if we're gonna go out and get drunk."_

 _"And share war stories?"_

 _"Exactly," she said, smiling. "And shit like that."_


	12. if it makes you happy

_water's getting harder to tread / with these waves crashing over my head_

 _lifehouse, "storm"_

* * *

 **chapter 10.**

 _if it makes you happy_

* * *

The tiny store on the tiny street is decorated black and orange and green and purple, with oddly-shaped ghosts stuck on the glass panes and a badly carved pumpkin sitting on the front desk. The only employee around is wearing a black pointy hat, and she's watching them with careful eyes which are smudged with heavy kohl. It's the look they usually get when it's all-too obvious they're from out of town, and when they're in danger of upsetting the balance of quiet lives. That, and they're probably the only people she's seen all day who haven't made an effort to dress up.

(Truth be told, neither he or Leah noticed it was Halloween until he'd parked the car, and if somebody were to ask him, he would say that they were doing a damn fine job of ignoring the whole thing. Halloween reminds him of how long they have been gone, and the bonfires they will be missing on First Beach.)

"So much for road trip music." Leah pulls a face and sets Eric Clapton back on the poorly stocked shelf, and goes back to humming that damned Sheryl Crow song which haunted him from Yuma to Tucson, and now all the way to the edge of Louisiana where it is warm and dry even in October.

They've taken nearly two weeks to crawl across the state line. Everything's been a little slow since Rockport, slow like his body has become now that he's doing his best not to phase — he hurts way more than usual because of it, which is really fucking saying something — and slow like Leah, who has begun her hunt for the most annoying albums in the history of The Worst Music Ever. The collection is growing on the backseats of the poor Guardian.

She turns her nose up at his choice of The Black Keys, even though he's allowed her four discs of Journey and turned a blind eye to Genesis. Country pop music that's also a little bit folk-ish, however, is enough to make him disown her and the whole reason he's vetoed Shania Twain in every store. God forbid she finds the specific CD of Sheryl Crow's Greatest Hits she's been painstakingly searching for.

(She doesn't know that he finally found it a few minutes ago. He quickly managed to hide it behind Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley a few rows down. He'd rather sing Disney.)

* * *

 _Sometimes, down by the river, if he and Leah turned their heads the right way, they could hear a faint song playing from the grand piano. It's soothing tones were meant for the baby, of course, but Jacob knew that Cullen likely also meant it for the wolf who had abandoned his daughter. A reminder, of sorts. An accusation._

 ** _A bunch of vamps who like to kick a man when he's down,_** _Leah's echo reminded him._

 _Cullen was usually at the piano still when Jacob was dragging his feet up the white porch. Whatever piece he was playing to try and calm Renesmee would then morph into something a little more jubilant, and very quickly the tears would stop and the tension in the bloodsuckers' eyes would fade, just as Jacob's will would begin to crumble as he hovered in the doorway._

 _Bella always greeted him first. Her face would split in the same way that the baby's did behind her, and everything about it was just so fucking unfair that Jacob had a hard time remembering why he was doing what he was doing. As his whole body betrayed him, he struggled with remembering why he hadn't yet given in completely, and why exactly it was that he so often felt as if he wanted to run back into the forest with Leah for the rest of their lives._

 ** _I need you to stop letting them kick you._**

 _He knew what they wanted. And he knew what Leah wanted. His wolf wanted what they wanted, while he needed what Leah wanted. Cullen knew it, too; Jacob didn't have to be the one who read minds to know why they kept pulling him back to the house. They hoped that his wolf would win the fight if he came back enough and saw what he could do. Who he could be. How he was so spectacularly failing at everything else._

 _But then the sickening, icy sweetness would overwhelm him, momentarily shocking his senses no matter how many times it had happened before, and he would remember. Then Bella would recall a faint human memory, or Fang would thank him, or The Wife would offer clothes, and Jacob would remember that these people_ _—_ _these bloodsuckers_ _—_ _were not his family. They were not Pack. He would remember exactly why he wanted to run back into the forest with Leah for the rest of their lives, and why he had sent Seth and Embry away._

 _So Cullen would hit the ivory keys harder, as Fang asked after Leah and The Wife would offer food on top of clothes. Not even Bella, who he'd taught to ride motorbikes and had pulled out of the ocean, who was the reason he would lock himself in the garage for days on end, could coerce him into leaving the doorway, while the rest of them kept quiet (Blondie hadn't taken a crack at him for a week), and every single one of them warily waited for him to snap._

 _It would happen. One day. He'd either run a thousand miles, or he'd take a step inside._

 ** _You're gonna have to decide if we stick around._**

* * *

Leah finds Sheryl Crow. Jacob picks up Radiohead, and swears that he'll have her butchering _Creep_ instead of _If It Makes You Happy_ before Alabama.


	13. still going strong

_you and me, we're just fine_

 _dan black, "u + me"_

* * *

 **chapter 11.**

 _still going strong_

* * *

"We really should have started collecting something," Leah muses absently while she lazily flicks through the general store's wobbly rack of greeting cards. They've stopped somewhere in southern Mississippi, between the edges of Louisiana and Alabama where it's quiet and she can take a break from her valiant attempts to destroy Radiohead's masterpieces.

Jake's reflection pauses in the mirror. He's trying on the most unflattering sunglasses he can find, but there's not much to choose from and it's turning out that they're all pretty awful. "Like what?"

"T-shirts from every state. A postcard. Something."

"Keyrings," he suggests.

Leah looks over at him and snorts, but he's not sure whether it's because of the cheap clubmasters he's wearing or because he wants keyrings. "So you can bunch them together and give Cullen a 'screw you' gift?"

"I think Rach tried collecting magnets," he starts to tell her instead, because buying souvenirs for Cullen with Cullen's money is not seeming like such a bad idea after all and he needs to put more thought into it. "The problem is that she's only ever left Washington to go to Hawaii. Didn't even go out of state for college, so Dad just has a dolphin on the fridge with _aloha_ in glitter to remind him that only one daughter came back."

Leah takes a minute while Jacob realises his thoughtlessness and tries to hide his guilt behind the dark shades. He's managed to bring up all the things she misses in one sentence: brothers and sisters (because Rach and Beck are sisters to her as Seth is a brother to him), moms and dads, and _home_.

"We should get your dad more magnets," she eventually says, sounding sad and thoughtful and wistful in equal measure. "Finish the job."

Jake quietly wonders with a slight pang how a magnet from Mississippi with Elvis' face next to the _aloha_ dolphin would go down with Billy. The rational part of him which is slowly coming all the way back misses his little red house and his family and his damn garage (he's going to have to make an excuse up at some point to change the Guardian's oil the next time they stop, because he hasn't been underneath a hood in _weeks_ ). The rational, _just_ _Jacob_ part also knows he doesn't have to ask Leah whether she worries for Seth and Sue the same way he worries whether Rach and Paul are taking care of his dad.

"Or not," his Second says when he doesn't answer. "Maybe we can just write a postcard. We've missed a few states, anyway."

(About six of them, in fact, because they've mostly been following the coast since she threw the sucker's cellphone into the Tijuana River and because they have made sure to keep a thousand miles between them and Forks. It seems to be working. Though Jake's undecided if it's down to how far they go, the longer he stays away, or even the Phase which he now keeps grounded, he hasn't had a real hard time keeping his train of thought for the last few days and he hasn't thought about turning the car around for about seven hours.)

He gives up the hunt for crappy sunglasses and joins her at the rack, where cards wish happy birthday and greetings from Biloxi. "Postcards are fine," he tells her gently. "Or you could call."

 _Or we could go home._

He would go back for her. She would stay for him.

But Leah shakes her head at the words unspoken, because these are some of the things they do not have to say aloud to one another. "Let's try both."

* * *

 _Sometimes, while Jacob stood in the white doorway, torn between what was real and the lure of what was not, the phone rang._

 _"Charlie," one of them would always unnecessarily announce from inside, and, on top of it seeming as if he were feeling everything else possible, Jacob was outraged that nobody seemed all that bothered. Perhaps it was their stone white faces, he thought, or maybe it was because he still didn't believe there could be true depth to a frozen bloodsucker. Even Bella tried to attempt a straight face, in fear of her husband fussing or her baby catching on. But there was always a brief moment when Jacob forgot about the loss of her heartbeat and her child in the next room who screamed for him, and instead he was angry because Charlie had always treated him like a son and deserved better._

 _"What would you suggest we do, Jacob?" Cullen asked one day._

 _Jacob didn't answer that. Cullen already knew what he thought. That Charlie deserved an answer which would undoubtedly ruin him, or an answer which meant he wouldn't eventually come storming over with shotgun in hand and a small police force behind him. That Jacob knew they were tiptoeing around the idea of keeping Charlie in the dark, of letting him imagine Bella stuck in months of quarantine while they made plans to leave Forks for good — plans which might depend on whether they'd have a wolf tagging along for the ride. That one day, it might be the phone which finally pulled Jake into the house just so that he could answer it and tell the truth if only because he'd never gotten around to buying a suit for a fake funeral._

* * *

They find a mailbox before they find a phone.

 _Mom,_  
 _The boots are still going strong. My hair_  
 _is finally growing out._  
 _Jake hates country music so I'm taking_  
 _him to Tennessee._  
 _Love, Leah_

And with it:

 _Dad,_  
 _We bought you a magnet so the dolphin_  
 _won't look so lame._  
 _We're alright. Don't let the guys mess up_  
 _the garage. Or borrow the Rabbit._  
 _Jake_

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _Here I am in 2018, still trying to get over Meyer's garbage. Sentinel is still queen. Reviews are still loved (thank you, thank you). Happy January-nearly-February everyone!_


	14. downright ridiculous

_when i'm losing my control, the city spins around / you're the only one who knows, you slow it down_

 _the fray, "look after you"_

* * *

 **chapter 12.**

 _downright ridiculous_

* * *

 _Jacob had become used to seeing Leah always looking as if she was ready for a fight. Tall, defensive and formidable, she kept herself steady, firstly because she'd become sick of the sympathetic looks when Emily had moved onto the reservation, and then because she had been the first and only one of her kind suddenly holding her own against six other boys. She'd buried her dad, remained firm against newborns and had gained three new brothers, standing up against Sam throughout, until she found herself standing up against every single one of them._

 _Except Jacob. Leah's loyalty did not come easily._

 _It should not have been strange, then, that she slept the same way. She was still and silent, often not moving for so long, and sometimes he found it difficult to stop himself from checking that she was still breathing or to give a sigh of relief when she finally opened her eyes. It was harder, being on his own for that time when she had been his only constant company for weeks. Sometimes it was almost as if s_ _he was not sleeping at all, but instead simply lying on her back and listening to everything going on around them with that guard of hers up and her body on red alert. It looked about as restful as it was for Jacob, who kept his eyes open for hours and rarely managed shut down when he tried._

 _But sleep Leah did, and Jacob was left to wait._

* * *

Since leaving Texas, Jacob and Leah have always begun the night separately, in beds paid for at the desk of whatever cheap motel they've stumbled across, with the borrowed money they know they will never pay back, but it's never usually long before they are making space for one another and sharing a sheet. With her beside him, he's not slept as soundly for months.

In Alabama, just as he's about to ask for the usual twin room, Leah loudly asks for double, and she pointedly ignores the raised eyebrows of both Jacob and the night clerk as she hands over the cash. It seems as if they're all daring each other to say something; Leah's got _that_ look on her face (the one which says she's already thought up a retort she considers spectacular), and the southern-mannered, polite receptionist seems to be expecting the same rehearsed lie she often hears from teenagers checking in without suitcases, while Jacob is waiting, at long last, to be asked for his licence despite being aware he looks about twenty-five (because it would only prove he is most definitely not actually legally old enough to be doing anything of importance).

But the woman behind the front desk simply smiles again, and hands over a key. She is used to this. "Is there anything else I can do for you, ma'am?"

He rolls his eyes. The Heart of Dixie is about as Southern as it gets — he was called _sir_ nine times alone in the rural gas station where he changed the oil and checked the Guardian's tyres — but Leah revels in it. She doesn't hide how much happier she feels in the little towns they stop, and Jake's long since noticed that she eats better, she sleeps better, and she drives slow, not just to annoy her passenger but so she can take everything in. After filling the tank, she hung her head out of the window for a whole four and a half miles towards the motel all the while leisurely swerving over the empty roads, and she's barely stopped smiling since. She beams at the receptionist, and says, no, thank you, but what time do they have to check out?

While Jacob might pull faces he understands that he's not the only one in his Pack who is running away, and so when he's driving he rarely joins the nearest interstate and he hasn't threatened the gas pedal in a while. His sense of urgency appears to have burnt out, and Leah loves their new pace. She even falls behind him when walking to their room.

"What has happened to the girl with her foot up my ass?" he calls over his shoulder.

Leah just sticks her tongue out. She's always been a bit snarky and wholeheartedly wilful (her mom has always insisted that she started her headstrong teenage phase thirteen years and nine months too early, the moment she was born breach), but she's not said anything eyebrow-raising for a while now — at least, for a few hours — and he's certain that no amount of southern cities could possibly have curbed even her tongue.

"It was Sam's birthday yesterday," she eventually says when she catches up with him at their door. Jacob holds his breath, even though she's got the same wide grin on her face she had in the rundown lobby. Mentioning the names of _Those People We Don't Really Talk About_ doesn't tend to lead anywhere good.

"And?" he asks slowly, because she looks at him in a way that says, _Come on, ask me why this is so great!_

"And," she replies just as slowly, a little giddy and very proud and mostly excited and, maybe, even a little shocked with herself, " _I forgot._ Didn't remember until when we got gas this afternoon. And I didn't give a shit."

Jacob wonders whether this will ever happen to him, and for a brief second the ugly, illogical part of him that might always have a hold over him bucks in jealousy, though it is just as quickly forgotten when Leah starts laughing. She laughs her way into the room, and he thinks she's still laughing quietly when she gets into the shower because once upon a time, the idea of _her_ not remembering _Sam's_ birthday would have been downright ridiculous.

Her elation of what has been realised washes over his own senses with such ferocity that it could be his own. It finds a home with the new hope and strength he's feeling, until soon he finds himself laughing with her.

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _Before you do anything else, please send big, humongous, extraordinary love to Sentinel, who is the sole reason I stopped banging my head against the wall over this little chapter. I was gearing up to become a hermit after I was done with the wall, and this wouldn't have gotten out without her support._

 _Also, know I would be an unhappier person without the reviews and messages you have all sent. Have some cake, because I've eaten a lot today._


	15. now

_in a place that's warm and dark / in a place where i can feel the beating of your heart_

 _tracy chapman, "the promise"_

* * *

 **chapter 13.**

 _now_

* * *

In the darkness of the room, Jacob is teetering on the edge of sleep, vaguely wondering how long Leah's going to have that same damn smile she's had plastered on her face for most of the day — the one which makes her look like Harry, and Seth — when she nudges him underneath the sheet.

Every inch of him exhausted, he just about understands she's checking to see if he's still awake, too. While he's only recently learned that she likes to talk before sleep, he learned long ago that she does not tend to say things unnecessarily, especially not if nobody is listening, so he grumbles into her neck where his face is buried.

 _Trying to sleep. What is it?_ is what he really means, because otherwise she'll probably be up half the night thinking about it.

He's just about to bump her back when she finally speaks. "Do you think you'll ever forget?"

"No." The hold which Sam and Renesmee have over them is not the same, but still it is nice to believe that he can be hopeful — to think that one day, he will be the one who laughs with such abandon over something he never thought possible. "Maybe I'm not supposed to," he adds as an afterthought into her blazing skin.

While he does feel a little more like himself these days, maybe he's not supposed to completely get rid of the headache or the aches and pains which can make him feel so heavy it is hard to move. Maybe it's a life sentence, for refusing fate and destiny and all those sorts of things which were supposed to give his world a purpose. Or maybe, if he runs for a little longer, a little further, then fate and destiny and whatever else will realise it's a complete waste of time trying to sort things out _their_ way and everything will just _stop_.

Maybe, he wonders hazily. Maybe.

 _Unlikely_ , says a small voice.

No. He doesn't want to think right now. He's warm, and he's tired, which doesn't happen all that often anymore and so when it does he grabs onto it with both hands and holds on. After phasing for the first time, he learned that only his Pack and an imprint could feel truly warm to him again — everybody else had since turned a little cold and slightly uncomfortable, like the suckers who were so frozen that they burned if the wolves got close enough. He knows Leah feels it too. It's why she lets him curl around her and hold onto her when everything else is feeling a little bit off, and not only because his wolf is fighting with him to get up, get out, and get back to Washington. It's why she leans back into him so that they're safe and protected and _together_. It's why they've eventually ended up in a double bed, instead of Jake staring into the darkness and working up the nerve to get in beside her so that he can be sure he'll still be there in the morning.

(He's not left a room without her since he went to get coffee and clothes and she thought he'd bailed on her, but some nights it has been close. Too close.)

"Maybe not," Leah agrees quietly after a while, but she does not sound as disappointed or sad as he thought she would be. She sounds thoughtful, serious, and all too alert. "Do you remember when I went to see Sam?"

His answer is muffled, and probably would have sounded something like, _Sure, yeah, what about it?_ She doesn't need to know that he thinks about it most days, or that he still wonders what was worth stinking like Sam and the other side of the treaty line for the rest of the day.

"He doesn't think that you're supposed to, either. Forget, I mean." Even though Jacob's close to half asleep, so tired that he's in danger of not remembering this conversation in the morning, he recognises the new tone to Leah's voice as she talks about Sam. It's not entirely with hatred, but it's not entirely with indifference either. And he just about understands that she's finally telling him all about That Day. "He said that you won't ever forget."

Jake keeps his hold tight and his legs wound closely with hers, his face hidden and his eyes closed, though sleep is becoming more and more less likely. There are some things which don't need an answer, and there are some things which simply _can't_ be answered. He's not sure he could find something to say even if Leah waited a thousand years. But she doesn't wait. She knows he's listening.

She grips his arms until her fingers are digging in. It's almost painful, but so is what she is trying to finally say to him. "I went because I was done with watching you leave. I was done with you coming back looking worse than before. And when _I_ came back… Sam... Well, he didn't really say anything that we hadn't already thought. Deep down, anyway. But I was worried that if I said it out loud when you asked then you would have just given up."

He tries to keep his breathing steady as he imagines going back to the house and never leaving, but the hammering of his heart betrays him.

"You wouldn't have really tried, y'know? You had to try. So I didn't tell you."

"He doesn't think it can be done," Jake says, pulling himself up only to be heard clearly. "That's what you went to ask."

She seems more apologetic about it now than she was after finding her way back to the river, and her words are a little bit of a rush. "Waste of time, really. I forgot that he relies too much on what the Council told him before anyone else. He tried to use the Third Wife to explain it."

He understands her huff which follows and shows her annoyance, because the legends passed down through their folklore and the old, fading journals had never really given them much guidance about things they hadn't been forced to learn themselves. No wolf in his great-grandfather's Pack had imprinted, and everybody who knew the Quileute secret had their own theories — as they did everything else. Leah was the subject of many of them.

Jake frowns in the dark. "But the Third Wife sacrificed herself."

Leah turns herself over in his arms, and she is the one hiding her face when she says, rather meaningfully and probably hoping to high heaven that he'll understand and forgive her, "She _died_ , Jake."

 _Oh_.

"Even then, Taha Aki didn't forget. He didn't marry again like he did when the two other wives died from old age. His wolf stayed with her body for three days, not letting anyone come near them for all that time, remember? It makes sense for them to think that she was an imprint."

In other words, Sam thought it couldn't be done. Even in death, he believed it could not be broken, not just willingly forgotten, because Taha Aki had never gone back to the tribe. He'd disappeared into the forest, and he'd never phased again.

She doesn't have to remind him of that part of the story, nor that he's done much the same; he's all but disappeared, and he's not phased for weeks now — not since running as far as Wyoming when the true realisation of what he was really doing had hit him. But Renesmee is not dead, and he's not all the way mad with desperation and grief quite yet. He's just about finding his own two feet again, remembering what it is to be sixteen and to not know what the hell he's doing all the damn time.

"Do you think it can be done?"

Jacob hates how small his voice sounds in the quiet of the small room, and how much weight they both know is dragging down the question. Leah's belief in him is the reason they've gotten as far as they have.

"I don't know," she answers just as quietly, hunkered down against his chest. "But you're trying. You had to try," she says again. "And there's still enough of _you_ left that you want to. Maybe that's all that matters."


	16. then

_well, i never saw it coming / i should have started running a long, long time ago_

 _daughtry, "over you"_

* * *

 **chapter 14.**

 _then_

* * *

 _Bella found him first. Of course._

 _"You don't look like you've been sleeping, Jake." Her disapproving frown was much the same, save for her red eyes and hard features. The way she stuck out her bottom lip as she looked him over was extremely familiar, but this time she did not dare reach out for him. He thought that, for the first time in history, it probably hurt Bella more than it did him to think that he would shy away from her touch._

 _He didn't answer. He knew that he looked like shit, and that it wasn't all because of not sleeping and having lived next to the water for days on end. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten a hot meal, and he was not alone. Leah's cheekbones were a little sharper than usual, and her mood even fouler. She never did like eating raw._

 _"Reminds me of when you were out patrolling all the time." Bella's frown deepened, either because even now she still disapproved of that too or because she was already struggling to remember days spent waiting to be found by the red head. Jacob wondered how much of her old life she remembered. Of how she would have tried to remember him, if he had been brave enough to skip town before she opened her red eyes. If he had not waited for her to return from that first hunting trip after she'd been changed._

 _Had he been brave enough, he thought, he would have had gained a head start before she'd found out the truth, and she wouldn't have tried to rip out Leah's throat._

 _"The good ol' times, huh?" he joked from the huge doorway, but it felt strange and sounded flat compared to the joyful music coming from the piano which once again was announcing his arrival._

 _Bella managed a smile, though, and it seemed genuine. "Yeah, when everybody wanted to take a snap at me."_

 _"S'pose you're a bit bored now," he said, instead of, **I'm sure I could find someone** , and immediately thinking of Leah and Paul, because dammit, it **still** hurt a bit to even think about hurting Bella even when she had red eyes and a dead heart._

 _So he tried not to think of anything other than how the gaping hole in his chest had already started closing and how the relief of feeling whole consumed him, because he and his traitorous wolf were kept intact for as long as they could hear the heartbeat which was already frighteningly familiar. It sounded like the wings of a small bird trying to keep itself in the air._

 _Hindsight was a wonderful thing. When the piano stopped and Cullen came to the door, Jacob should have known then that focusing on such things had been the wrong thing to do. He should have known that Cullen had been waiting to take such advantage of mental weakness, to lure him closer to failure and solve the problem without so much as an invitation over the threshold._

 _Or perhaps it had been because Jacob was so damn hungry, and so dead on his feet that he barely registered what he was doing when the front door closed behind him and he was standing in the hall. He could smell breakfast being fried somewhere close and hear the murmurs of surprised suckers around him, though there was only one voice which was clear to him._

 _"Jacob!" it called in a high soprano, and the wolf arched its back like a happy cat being stroked._

 _It wasn't a surprise to hear her talking. He'd pretended not to notice when she'd called before, only a week old and already stringing impossible sentences together._

 _It wasn't a surprise to see her run into the hallway. (That surprise had happened two days ago, a little less than two weeks after she had found her voice. Had it been so long already?) She was only stopped from leaping right up to him by Bella, whose expression had suddenly turned wary, while Cullen's was one of intense scrutiny as he waited for the next move to be made._

 _Though perhaps a little more stunned with where he had found himself, Jacob's expression matched Bella's, who picked her daughter up and held her close. It had not been that long since Renesmee had poked her head out of the living room and he'd seen her properly, but he could see the remarkable changes in her face and the way that her hair fell differently._

 _"Jacob," was said again, though more carefully now, slow and poignant to receive the reaction it warranted. That she wanted. Already Renesmee knew that her family hung on her every word from whatever room of the house they were in — they worshipped her every breath, as if it were her very first. "Jacob. Why do you not like me?"_

 _If he were looking anywhere but her tiny heart shaped face, he would have seen every sucker in the living room widen their eyes, and Bella's free hand fly to her mouth. It was a fraction of a second later the suckers began answering for him, suddenly finding their own place in the hall so that they could give a reassuring, comforting touch to their miracle child._

 _"Of course he likes you, darling—"_

 _"—shouldn't think that, Renesmee."_

 _"He just doesn't know you, sweetheart, and you—"_

 _"—talked about this, haven't we?"_

 _"It's not your fault, sweet girl."_

 _Renesmee, barely a month old and already Supreme Leader, rolled her eyes and huffed. The talking seized abruptly, and if her family were not staring at her then they were staring at him, waiting for him to break her little heart so that they could finally tear him to pieces and be done with the whole shit show already. He knew who would call first dibs on his head._

 _"I asked Jacob."_

 _There was a possessiveness to the way Renesmee said it that it would have made Leah wanted to spit. Meanwhile, it made his wolf positively glow. Jacob, however, finally snapped back to the senses he'd left the river with, feeling as if he might hurl._

 ** _Of course I like you,_** _he wanted to say around the bile. But that was Wrong, because it was something that she needed to hear and it was not in his new nature to deny this girl anything. It was not what Jacob would have said._

 _The man would have said, **I don't — it's not — y'know, they're right —** and then he would have made sure to put his foot in his mouth as far as it would go, so that hopefully he could choke himself before Cullen had a chance. Hurting Renesmee's feelings was incomprehensible — he couldn't have done it even if he'd wanted to._

 _So he said, "I don't hate you," and wished that he could lie._

 _Her rejection by him and her annoyance with everybody else was replaced with a blinding smile, and she expertly twisted out of her mom's arms and landed on the balls of her feet. The shocked vampires were too slow to hold her back_ — _to stop what happened next. Jacob would never forgive them._

 _Renesmee skipped towards him with one, graceful movement, and she grabbed his hand._

 _Cullen was the fastest, but two and a half seconds too late. Enough time for Jacob not to think of the possessiveness she had displayed again, but to be drowned by everything she had been storing for him: the first time she had seen him, the way both she and her mother missed him, and the song her father played every time he was nearby. The feeling of being parted, and the feeling of not understanding, with the feeling of happiness when he came to see her. It washed over him all at once, and it crippled him._

 _Too much. Too much. Too, too much, when he was already spilling over himself. When he was not himself._

 _And then suddenly she was gone. While one part of him roared in defiance, the other threatened to send him to his knees._

 ** _No! Come back!_**

 ** _Get out. Get out. Get out._**

 _"Jacob. Catch."_

 _His hand snapped up in front of his face, only by instinct alone catching what had been thrown at him. Metal dug into his calloused hand._

 _"There's cash in the glovebox. It will be enough to fill the tank."_

 _Jacob blinked. Everything was in slow motion, when he could actually see straight; his vision seemed to come in quick fits and starts and was tainted red around the edges. He wasn't sure what part of him that was down to. Wolf? Jacob?_

 _" **Go**." Cullen looked almost sorry for what he had tried to force. But not sorry enough. Never enough. _

_While Jake barely understood what he had been given, he knew an Order when he heard one and he responded automatically as if he were back under Sam's rule. As if his puppet strings were being pulled for him. He'd forgotten what it was to be told what to do – to feel as if somebody knew what needed to be done and would see it finished right. It was achingly familiar, and it was enough for his body to respond although his mind felt far, far away._

 _His feet carried him back through the door he might have broken in his haste to get out, and then all the way down the white steps of the porch, into the open garage which was four times the size of his own and into the car which blinked orange when his surprisingly steady fingers pressed the key. He didn't let his mind catch up. It was another sense entirely which controlled him, which pulled on one of the few ties he had left in his head and told him that Leah was not at the river, where habit normally took him after fleeing and where he knew he shouldn't go. It would just keep happening again, and again, and he was done. So done._

 _When he stopped at the end of the driveway and wordlessly threw the passenger door open, everything was still a little bit red. But he was done. So done._

 _Leah cocked an eyebrow, a little bit interested and a little bit something else. He'd figured it out later._

 _"Where are we going?"_

 _"Does it matter?"_

 _"No."_


	17. after

_run boy run! they're trying to catch you_

 _woodkid, "run boy run"_

* * *

 **chapter 15.**

 _after_

* * *

" _What?_ " Leah tenses, and her face is oddly pale as she grips the phone to her ear.

 _What's wrong?_ Jacob mouths at her. He's been watching her a while, leaning against the one working payphone they've found on the outskirts of Orlando. It's just about as far as they could possibly be from La Push (the realisation of this is what brought her to finally call home), unless she wants to go a bit further and get Billy a magnet from Miami before they start going north — to Tennessee, to be exact, after great insistence on her part. When he had finally caved, he promised that they could go so long as they stopped in Florida first.

But so far away in Floria, Jake doesn't feel as different as he thought he might. He's not exactly sure what he was hoping for — the holes in his chest to close, maybe, or for a spring in his step, at the very least — but he's still as off-balance as he was standing on the beach in Crescent City all that time ago.

Though he might be able to keep his focus now and he's started feeling a little bit more like the person he could have been had he never phased, it's the physical pain, the _wolf's_ pain, which still plagues him. It is the effect of what he has done, of what he is still trying to break. It has him standing in ice cold showers to feel alive and it makes him fall into bed at the end of the day, more weary and limp than he should really be, while Leah still has energy which could burn down forests.

"No—no, I heard you the first time, Mom," Leah then says quickly, her eyes wide as she looks back at Jacob. But he can't figure out whether it's with shock, fear, or something else. Something a little bit awful. "I just—"

She falls annoyingly quiet again as she listens.

 _What?_ Jacob asks again. He can't make out Sue's end of the conversation and waves a demanding hand in front of her face. Then, out loud, " _Tell me_."

She blinks, once, twice, as if the heedless Order has made her remember that Jacob is still there with her and looking every inch like the Alpha he's always tried so very hard not to be.

"Cullen," she says simply.


	18. part three: prologue (leah and jacob)

**part 3: leah and jacob**

* * *

 _i want you to know that i won't make it worse for you. hell, maybe i'll even help._

 _leah clearwater, "breaking dawn"_

* * *

 _i didn't have to be all alone. and i knew leah was strong enough to face with me the months that were coming. months and years._

 _jacob black, "breaking dawn"_

* * *

 **prologue**

* * *

They've been gone for thirty-six days.

They drive back in two.


	19. home (leah)

_well i guess i'll just go home_

 _mumford & sons, "after the storm"_

* * *

 **chapter 16.**

 _home_

 _(leah)_

* * *

The Mercedes idles quietly on the side of La Push Road. Any further, and they will be inside the reservation's lines.

Until now they've only been stopping for gas, and their exhaustion shows. Leah's head rests on the steering wheel, while Jake rubs lazily at the space between her shoulders — she thinks it's because he needs to keep his hands busy, even though he's not really let go of her since she put the phone down. Anger and frightened panic has kept him close by.

But, underneath the surface of that anger and frightened panic, they both know it's more than that. Things have been changing between them for a while now; subtle, gentle differences she's become so used to that she doesn't stop to think about it anymore. Sometimes when she's driving he puts his hand on her thigh, and sometimes she runs her fingers through his hair which is growing into his eyes again. They always hold hands in the street. They don't sit opposite one another in the diners. They wake up every morning with their legs tangled. They even shared a toothbrush for a few days after his got left behind somewhere in Louisiana, and she shocked herself when the idea didn't disgust her as much as it should have.

It doesn't matter what it means, or why, or _how_ it's happened, it just has. All Leah knows is that it was changing for her long before they left — _she_ was changing, and it was happening whether she was ready for it or not.

* * *

 _When she finally slammed the black phone back into its cradle, Jacob looked as if he might hurl. The man. Boy. Alpha. Wolf. And sixteen, she reminded herself. Just sixteen._

 _"What do we do?" he asked._

 _She swallowed around her own bile and tried to remain steady, because **he** was asking **her** what to do and because steady was what he needed from her. The woman. Girl. Beta. Wolf. And nineteen, she reminded herself. Just nineteen._

 _"It's your choice," she said. "It's always been your choice."_

* * *

After several long minutes Leah sluggishly pulls her forehead from the wheel, finally sure that she'll be able to see straight and get them home if she keeps the window down, when Jacob, his voice barely above a whisper, says, "No. Not yet."

All too willingly, Leah lets her head drop back down, and he continues to make slow, senseless patterns on her back. She understands. She's not all that eager to end this — whatever _this_ is — either.

"We can still turn around," she says just as quietly, thinking of the ridiculous amount of money they still have in the compartment. She regrets them looking for cheap motels and diners instead of fancy restaurants and expensive hotels. She's never had room service before. But they were being careful, stretching the cash so it could last years — not thinking he would be forced back so soon...

"No." He sounds sad. He sounds like the Jake he's been trying to leave behind. "We can't."

Well, it had been worth a shot. It's not like she had pulled over simply because her eyes were heavy, just like she had slowed the car at the crossroads between Forks and La Push, unsure where they were to go first, unsure whether had Jacob been the one driving if he would have slowed at all. But Leah had needed to let him know one more time that she will _always_ give him the choice he deserves. She will not be another person in his life who takes away his free will, as others have stripped them of theirs before.

(She doesn't feel bad, though, that she didn't hide her sigh of relief when he'd told her to go home. She needs to be on absolute top form to ruin the leeches before anyone tries to stop her, and Jacob needs to sleep.)

It makes her think of Sam. Sam, who was either too lenient or too heavy-handed with no in between. "You think they know we're here already?"

Jacob's blazing fingers move to the back of her neck — skin to skin, which calms both of their heart rates. "Probably. Sam will have had them watchin' out."

He starts toying with the ends of her still too-short hair, even though it's growing as quickly as his seems to be, and she thinks Sam and his sentries will be watching for a while then, because she's in no hurry to move. And neither is Jake, considering their breakneck speed to get where they are. He's not ready, and so neither is she, despite the countless laws they may or may not have broken between them on the freeways.

"Y'think _they_ know?"

Jacob's touch hesitates for just a second and, being so attuned to him, her shoulders tense.

"Probably," he says again after another second, already back into his rhythm. It's so easy for him. So normal for them.

And not as surprising as she thought it would have been.

For such a long while, Leah hadn't been ready for _anything_ with _anyone._ After Sam, all she'd wanted to do was burn and hit things and sob like a little bitch all the time. There'd been a while in between phasing for the first time, learning the truth, and throwing surly insults at her brothers or painful memories at Sam, where she'd had to phase out in the middle of patrol and just cry — until Jacob had escaped into the Canadian wilderness and, secretly, she'd been happy.

She'd been happy because she didn't have to listen to _Bella this_ and _Cullen that,_ of course, and she'd been happy because she thought that maybe the dreams about kissing the leech-lover would go away for a bit, but she'd also been happy _for_ Jacob. Rooting for him, even. He'd been strong enough to give himself an out, even if had meant that he'd given himself up to the wolf. She'd been so damn happy that Jake had done something for himself _,_ while she still felt so unable to, that she'd made sure to put extra effort into snarling down the phone when Bella called for an update.

(Eventually, Bella had worked out when Leah would most likely be home. So Leah had just put that effort into giving Seth shit, who had taken up responsibility for actually giving those updates.)

And then Jacob had given _her_ an out when he'd accepted his birthright. There was nothing which really surprised her after that. Not even when she thought that, maybe, this _something_ between them had just been waiting to be accepted, too.

When Leah lifts her head again, this time Jacob doesn't protest.

"You sure?" she asks. He nods.

They cross the line.


	20. at least the car will stink (jacob)

**_A/N:_** _Rating has changed from T to M. If you require additional warnings, please message me and I will keep you updated about potentially intense material. Any (potential, not promised)_ _erotic content will be posted on LiveJournal and/or AO3 under this username._

* * *

 _like a fool i thought i'd beat this on my own / but without you i'm sinking like a stone_

 _cody fry, "find my way back"_

* * *

 **chapter 17.**

 _at least the car will stink_

 _(jacob)_

* * *

Leah marches around the car once, twice. Then again.

"Nobody here," she says, after she raps her knuckles on the tinted window and he opens his door. But Jacob has no intentions of getting out just yet.

"Disappointed?" he asks.

"Yes." Her lips press into a thin line as if to prove it, and he wonders who she imagined would be waiting for them. Who she hoped was going to be the unlucky bastard she'd been prepared to haul off his dad's land with the last scraps of her wolfish energy.

He's almost too tired to smile at the thought of it. _Almost_.

"They're not Pack," he reminds her, tipping his head back against the seat as she leans on the open door. It's an effort to not close his eyes and finally sleep, now that they are here. Instead he stares at his little red home. "Wouldn't be able to feel them even if they followed us."

(Except Sam. Jacob will always be able to feel Sam, will always feel the natural challenge the other Alpha radiates for as long as they are the same.)

Leah's snort is a little scornful, as it usually is. "No," she says, swaying with the car door, "but I would still be able to smell their rancid armpits. And it feels like a long time since I took a chunk out of Paul just for the fun of it."

 _For the fun of it_ is Leah's way of letting off some steam. While Jake likes to rip parts of an engine out just so he can fix it again and keep his hands busy, Leah prefers to draw blood — preferably Paul's, who had anger issues to rival her own before he imprinted on Rach and mellowed out. The only way to get a rise out of Paul these days is to insult Rachel.

"Kinda hoped he'd be hanging around and mooning over your sister."

"I thought Sam would be waiting," Jacob says honestly, still fighting to keep his eyes open.

"Just Billy." She cocks an ear towards the house. "No Rach or Paul or Sam. The asshole is probably holding Wolf Court and making decisions about—"

"Are you comin' in or what?" his dad's deep voice calls from inside. "It's gettin' dark out."

* * *

 _"It's your choice," Leah had said, but there had been no choice about pulling themselves off the sidewalk and back into the Mercedes. There had been no choice about starting the engine, and heading straight for the interstate._

 _Cullen had made the choice for them — for Jacob. The bloodsucker had stalked right up to the boundary line, and sought an audience with Sam, who was the only Chief he recognised in Jacob's absence, and who was the only man he knew who would share his views about imprinting and responsibility and protection. Because Sam had accepted Emily and the consequences of that decision. Because Sam was used to laying down the law and fighting for his family, which included not only his brothers but Kim and Claire and Rachel, too. Because Sam valued imprinting bonds as highly as he valued the Quileute traditions his father had never taught him._

 _Because Cullen had heard all of this in Sam's mind, and he never failed to play his strengths for his personal gain._

 _And in turn, Sam had played his own strength of knowing what made Leah — well, Leah, and he had gone to Sue, had shamelessly, unapologetically **used** Sue, because he knew that the woman was one of only three people in the whole world who Leah cared for and that she would eventually check in._

 _(The other two were Seth and Jacob, of course.)_

 _Jacob had never truly hated Sam. Not really. But as his constant headache and the ache in his very bones begun to lessen the closer he and Leah got to Washington, he decided that he'd wasted a lot of hours — days and months, even — defending the motherfucker after phasing for the first time._

 _"I've always wanted someone to really hate him as much as I do," Leah said as they flew through Missouri. Jacob knew that she was being deadly serious (and that she was still hiring for her Emily Sucks club, too, although hating Emily seemed to be difficult for most people — even Bella had fallen for her, but then Bella did have a tendency to like poisonous things). "It feels better than I thought it would. Watching the whole submit-and-kiss-my-ass act was getting pretty boring."_

 _That was why Jacob had turned his back claimed what was his, he thought, but Leah already knew that._

* * *

When Rebecca eloped, Billy got so drunk with Harry that he needed two days to recover.

When Rachel accepted Paul, he disappeared fishing with Charlie for a whole weekend.

When Jacob imprinted, he breathed a sigh of relief after hearing the news and watched the Mariners game.

Billy has always given his only son a great deal more leeway than he ever has his daughters. Jacob knows this. After all, there aren't many parents who wouldn't bat an eye about their kid escaping into the Canadian wilderness for two months, or who wouldn't put up any missing posters on the reservation.

(Charlie had not gone fishing with Billy for a month when his efforts to find Jacob were not matched in passion.)

But leaving an imprint _— refusing_ an imprint... This, Billy Black does not understand. And Jacob is sure that the only reason he's not getting his ear twisted right now is because there's a lady present. So it is perfectly logical for Jacob to not let Leah out of his sight, even though she's clearly desperate for a shower after living on the road for two days straight.

At least the car will stink of them, when they give it back.

If they give it back.

"You look dead on your feet," his dad says, though it looks like he'd much rather be saying something else. He sighs. "Go and get some sleep, Jake."

His tone says in no uncertain terms that they will talk later. Billy can be as proud as Sam, sometimes, something made all the more clear when it became apparent that his crazy superstitions had some real weight to them.

As Leah herds him into his tiny bedroom, Jacob finds himself wishing that he could go back to the days when he simply thought his old man horribly prejudiced.

* * *

 ** _(Another) A/N:_** _As_ _you asked..._

 _Jacob's quote from Part Three's prologue is from Chapter 17 of BD, when he's returning with Edward's Aston Martin. Around that time he also said, "It was too bad that — with all my brooding — I'd forgotten to wreck the car." And it very nearly made the final cut. Good, huh?_

 _Leah's prologue quote is from Chapter 16, after she and Jacob hunt._

 _I had to skim the book for what I remembered. I couldn't read the whole thing again otherwise I might have burned it. (Nearly ten years have passed since it was released, but I still haven't forgiven Meyer for spending chapters and chapters laying the groundwork for these two and then bulldozing over it. Oh, my rage.)_

 _Thank you, as always, for reviewing and letting me know what you think (in spite of FF's recent bugs — I didn't get one email update for several days). It's hard to express over and over how thoughtful and how great you all have been, but I'll keep saying it anyway._


	21. if things had been different (leah)

_you can call it love, if you want_

 _mumford & sons, "wilder mind"_

* * *

 **chapter 18.**

 _if things had been different_

 _(leah)_

* * *

"Sleep or shower?"

"Sleep."

"Okay, then."

"There's clothes in Rach and Beck's room, if you want."

"I'm not—" The words catch in her throat, and she shrugs limply. "Y'know. Don't want to give your poor old man a coronary."

"Oh," Jacob says. "Right."

"I should really go see my mom, y'know?"

And Seth, too. Leah wonders if her little brother has forgiven them yet for pushing him back to Sam, who had been more than willing to kill the parasites he considers his friends. If Seth is still pissed with her and Jake, then there's absolutely no chance that Embry will speak to them either.

"I'll come with you."

"You need a decent sleep in your own bed," she tells him as insistently as she dares, whilst still trying to be gentle. The more Jake fights his wolf, the more exhausted he is, and he is obviously fighting extremely hard now that he is only a few miles from Renesmee after a month or so of being separated. Leah doesn't want to — _can't_ — make this worse for him than it already is.

"Oh," says Jacob again, unable to hide the emotion in his voice. "Sure."

Leah feels bad, and she is tired, too — enough to crawl into his tiny bed with him and sleep for the next week, the next _year_ , if they can — but her mom had sounded a little unnerved over the phone. As much as Sue Clearwater ever allowed herself to be, anyway. Leah knows it's probably just down to what the bloodsucker has threatened should Jacob continue denying the beloved demon child, but family is important, and both she and Jake have responsibilities to remember. She needs to go. He needs to stay.

But it's not a surprise when she ends up staying for another few minutes, knowing that Billy is trying to listen to every word they say (and perhaps _don't_ say) in the confines of his youngest child's bedroom.

"Take the car," Jacob says into his pillow after unceremoniously falling onto his tiny mattress. "I'm going to—"

"Sleep. You're going to _sleep_ , Jacob _._ You're no good to anyone like this."

Leah is certain that if he intends on facing the bloodsuckers _now_ , without either of them getting at least four hours rest, she will most definitely lose it; they are both dead on their feet, and the phase she has been denying for weeks and weeks burns underneath her skin, begging for release on familiar land. Jacob has not phased for nearly as long.

It would have been the perfect opportunity for them to just give up their wolves completely, if things had been different.

"I was going to say sleep." Jake rolls his eyes as he gets comfortable. "Geez."

He might be telling the truth, but when Leah slips out of the room and walks back through the house, she stands in front of Billy's rusty wheelchair and points in the direction of his son. "If he goes anywhere," she tells him, "you call me."

Billy cocks an eyebrow.

"Please," she adds, because while her mother taught her how to win an argument, her father managed to instill some manners in her.

Billy's grunt is noncommittal. Clearly, as a tribal elder, he would never do something as sacrilegious as keeping a cherished spirit warrior from their imprint, and, by the looks of it, not even when his only son is miserable because of it.

It has her scowling as she leaves. There's a reason that, out of her dad's best friends, she's always liked Charlie Swan more.

* * *

 _They negotiated the whole way home._

 _"You don't go to see them without me," she told him after refilling the tank at a stop in Kansas City and getting back into the car. They'd driven through the night, unable to sleep even when in the passenger seat. "I mean it, Jake. No more leaving me behind at the river."_

 _"Fine," he agreed after a long moment. "But you can't kill Edward."_

 _"What about Bella?"_

 _"No."_

 _"Blondie?" she asked hopefully._

 _Jacob sighed, though his lips twitched in spite of himself. "Well — okay, maybe you can tear an arm off, or something. They can put themselves back together, right?"_

 _"Not if you burn them first."_

* * *

Leah ignores the black car outside and instead stalks across the reservation on foot, just as unhappy about being away from Jacob as he was with her for leaving him behind. After more than a month in only one another's company, it is strange to be walking alone. No longer are they in their own world.

And so, naturally, it is not long before someone takes the opportunity to track her down and remind her of this.

Paul Lahote trails a few short steps behind for a few minutes while he tries to work up to what he wants to say, his face as stony as Billy's had been. Usually the asshole has no problem with expressing himself — a trait she begrudgingly shares with him — and his silence makes Leah wonder whether Sam has warned him to tread carefully. It will not take a great deal of effort to fracture what little understanding remains between the two Packs, and they all need to keep their tempers.

But Leah's always been one to break the rules. If she ends up reducing the Uley Pack by one, Sam will deserve it.

"Spit it out, Paul," she says after waiting another frustrating minute. "You've got until I get to my door."

He clears his throat. "Are you back?"

"Obviously."

"Obviously," he repeats, voice hard with annoyance. "But for how long?"

"Until someone jerks us around again, I guess. Why Sam didn't come to ask this himself? Scared?"

Paul strides forward, falling into step alongside her. "Dunno," he says, not rising to the bait. "Maybe he thought sending his Second to Jake's Second would be a better idea, seeing as they can't really be in the same spot without wanting to kill each other."

"And what makes you think we're going to be any different?"

"I guess I don't hate you as much as I hate Jake." Paul scowls at the name. "Leaving Rachel to look after Billy like that, without even—"

Outraged, Leah nearly loses her footing in her disbelief. "Like she and Beck left Jake?"

Leah loves Rach and Beck. Really, she does — they were as close as she and Emily were, growing up — but she will never forgive them for leaving their kid brother to take care of their disabled father. Rebecca has not been home _once_ since she got married to Solomon the Surfer Dude, while Rachel has only stuck around for as long as she has because she's turned into a complete fucking sap.

Paul seethes beside her, but Leah thinks it's only because she's insulted his imprint. Paul's only good for a rip-roaring fight these days if you make sure to spit when you say _Rachel_ (after she tested the theory, Sam made her run double shifts as punishment), whereas before all it took was to smack the side of his hollow head.

"You know how hard it was on Rach when their mom—"

"Yes, Paul, I know. So hard that she made sure to pick up extra shifts when school let out so she didn't have to come home for Thanksgiving. Or Christmas. Give me a break. Didn't see me runnin' off as soon as I could when—" Leah tries to keep her voice steady "—when my dad died."

Harry Clearwater had been her hero.

"Wish you had," Paul mutters as nastily as he is able.

Once upon a time, Leah might have instantly broken his jaw for something like that. Maybe she's like him now. Maybe all it takes is for someone to spit when they say _Jacob_. That's a strange thought. But she's so, so tired, and scrapping with Lahote now that he's no longer Pack and she can't hear him thinking about his next move is something she wants to try when she can walk in a straight line. He should have found her a little earlier if he wanted to get a rise out of her.

Maybe that was what Sam wanted. To prove something. She'd like to know what they're getting out of this.

So instead she just says, "Yeah. Me too, once."

It is not the first time Leah remembers how she'd almost turned her back on the Rez, but it is the first time she thinks that she is glad she chose to stick around.

"There's my front door," she announces unnecessarily. Her eyes are burning, and she thinks she will probably be asleep before her head hits the pillow. "You can go now. Run along back to Sam. And make sure you tell him that he's got some fucking nerve dragging my mom into this."

"She gave him hell for it already. So did Seth."

Leah makes a note to give her mom a hug when she gets inside.

Seth, too. If he'll let her.


	22. something more (jacob)

_**A/N:** So it's been a few months. And then some. I'm so so sorry. Cue excuses about receiving discouraging messages, hateful messages (I did tell you that there would be Renesmee fans making voodoo dolls out of me), starting a new job, life, blah blah blah. But fear not. I've planned out the rest of Now & Then, and going forwards I'm not going to open any private messages from names I don't recognise…_

 _I am really, honestly, extremely, very, very sorry._

 _ **Recap:** Leah and Jacob headed back to La Push and were greeted by a very disappointed Billy Black and a very nosy Paul Lahote._

* * *

 _i will hold on as long as you like / just promise me we'll be alright_

 _mumford & sons, "ghosts that we knew"_

* * *

 **chapter 19.**

 _something more_

 _(jacob)_

* * *

Unlike a lot of the old homes on the reservation, the Clearwaters' place is two-storey. It means that if Jacob wants to avoid finding himself having an awkward conversation in the hallway with Seth — or, God forbid, Sue — then he's going to have to scale the tree opposite Leah's bedroom window.

He hopes it's her bedroom, anyway; he hasn't been upstairs since before his mom died nearly eight years ago, and he's not sure he can deal with bumping into the wrong person. If his dad's attitude is anything to go by then — as one of the tribal elders — Sue isn't exactly going to be organising a welcome party for the very wolf who abandoned his destiny. And Seth is probably still pissed as hell for being left behind.

Truth be told, Jacob's not sure that he can deal with _anyone_ right now, not unless they're Pack, which is why he made sure his dad was deeply asleep before sneaking out. He wants his Pack. He _needs_ to be with his Pack. And that's Leah.

Just as he's about to start climbing the tree, the window above him swings open in the dark of the night and he sees his Second staring down at him with raised eyebrows. She's had her hair cut.

"I knew Billy wouldn't call me," she says with a disapproving, yet resigned look. She sighs. "You're meant to be sleeping, Jake."

"So are you," he replies lamely underneath her stare.

"No chance of that while you're out here, skulking about," she says, but there isn't any heat to her words. In fact, he sees her lips twitch as if she's trying to bite back a smile, but it disappears as quickly as it came. "Do you know what time it is?"

"Late," he tells her, taking a few long strides backwards. "Move out of the way. I've never done this on an empty stomach."

Leah scoffs, muttering something even his ears can't catch — something about food and obsession, maybe — but she does disappear back into her room without question, leaving the window open behind her, and Jacob is up the tree less than half a minute later.

* * *

 _When they were within a hundred miles of Forks, Jacob's hands gripped the side of the leather seat like they once did all those weeks ago. When they had left. Ran. And not looked back._

 _Until now._

 _"Do you want to drive?" Leah asked quietly._

 _He shook his head. No. He'd only turn them back around. He would forget honour and duty and home and make sure they were never within a hundred miles of Forks ever again, even though he knew that Leah wouldn't put up a fight if that was what he chose. But... well, that was exactly the point. Jacob didn't have a choice._

 _He felt like he'd_ never _had a choice. Not when Bella had stumbled back into his life with two broken motorbikes. Not when he'd heard Sam's words in his head for the first time. Not when he'd seen Renesmee for the first time. And certainly not when Cullen had demanded an audience with Sam, threatening to ruin them all if his daughter's wolf shirked his responsibilities — his destiny — any longer._

 _The idea that Jacob had a choice in any of it was almost laughable. So he shook his head when Leah asked him again, and he held on for dear life._

* * *

Jacob is closer to seven feet than he is six. He's found that there's no bed big enough for him, but between him and Leah they always seem to make it work. In cheap motels, in the middle of nowhere… In the quiet of her bedroom, which is clean and empty. Bare. There's nothing around him to tell him that it belongs to Leah, except for her scent.

There was something, though. Once upon a time. It might be dark but he can see the patches on the walls, the discoloured squares of paint and the holes from nails and tacks she's ripped clean off. As if there had been pictures and posters on the walls. He wonders how many photographs there were of Sam and Harry, wonders what her posters were of.

Country singers probably, he thinks. He's not forgotten about those CDs in the back of the car.

Neither has he forgotten the way Leah's body feels against his. Warm, safe. Familiar. It hadn't felt right, lying in his tiny bedroom in his tiny bed. Alone. He doesn't know if it'll ever feel right again, or if he even wants it to feel right. But it's different now, and he's not the only one painfully unsure of himself as he lays down on the mattress.

For a few heartbeats there's only the sound of the blankets rustling as they settle, and then Leah lets loose a breath before leaning into him.

"Nothing's changed," she says, when his arm doesn't snake it's way around her waist like it has done for the past month or so. Prompting him. Still, she's hesitant, in a way she's not been since they left. If they were anywhere else, if they were in another state, he knows that by now she'd be saying something like, _'Will you just get over yourself and get comfortable already? I want to sleep now.'_

The thought has him smiling a little, so he does just that. He nestles down and gets comfortable in the way he's become used to, the way that he needs. After all, this is why he has come. If he can't be here then he may as well be halfway up the steps of the white house in Forks, begging for forgiveness, doing anything that the imprint demands him to do so that Renesmee will look him in the eye and welcome him home. That's what the wolf wants. What everyone else seems to want him to do.

Except for one. Leah relaxes almost at the same time that he does.

"Is this okay?" he can't help but ask. "I mean, it's different now and I—"

"Go to sleep, Jake."

"—I don't want to, y'know…"

"No," she mumbles into her pillow, grouchy and exhausted, probably pissed at him for ruining the moment. "I don't know."

"Oh." Jake shifts slightly from behind, his arms tight around her and his nose in her hair, exactly the way they have been for weeks now. Why she ever thought he would actually sleep in his own bed, he doesn't know. "I just mean—"

Leah growls.

"Sorry."

She huffs and goes quiet, her breathing turning even.

They've never really spoken about these blurred lines between them, even though he's as aware of it as he is of Leah's scorching skin against his own. He can't think of when the lines began to blur. Maybe when they'd always start the night off in separate beds but find themselves together in the morning. Maybe when she asked for a double in Alabama, after which they'd never slept apart since. Maybe when it became something more than just getting a good night's sleep, more than simply just feeling connected to his Pack.

This is more. It's been something more for a while now.

Jacob shivers, as if something inside of him rebels at the thought. His wolf. The imprint. Renesmee. As if she knows he is here, and she is calling him. As if she knows he lies with his Second and he tries not to think about anyone, _anything_ else.

He shoves it all away and breathes deep. Breathes Leah in, and scrambles for the willpower he had finally found in Florida — before Leah had picked up the payphone and dialled home.

"Go to sleep, Jake," Leah says again, though this time with less bite.

"Trying."

She sighs and reaches over, flicking the bedside lamp before twisting to face him. He scowls against the sudden light.

Leah waits until he opens his eyes again. She is unapologetic. But Jake is used to that — her lack of apologies, the way she rarely bothers with such things. And then she says, gently, "I don't need to tell you that you can do this."

She stares, a direct and unyielding sort of stare. One that she has mastered and is completely her own. She's never cared much for the supposed hierarchy between them. She only cares about loyalty, about respect. Everything else can go to hell, as far as Jacob's Second is concerned. "You know you can. Because you've been doing it. And you were doing a pretty damn good job of it, too."

When he doesn't answer her, she says, "You _have_ to do this, Jake. You've proved you can."

He moans into the pillow they're sharing. He's not sure whether he can. He's less sure than he has been for weeks and weeks, now he's back and _so close_ to the thing he's been running from.

"Yeah, because I left. Because we weren't here. Because—"

"No. Because… Because you're better than that, alright? We're here _because_ you're better than that. We're not leaving again."

He turns his face to look at her, squinting. "Yet."

Even Leah can't help but laugh at that. "Yet," she agrees with a roll of her eyes, still smiling tiredly. "After this. We'll go, if that's what you want. Just… not now. Not until Edward backs down."

Jacob pulls a face at the name, although after a minute he's nodding, understanding and agreeing, knowing that she's right. Leah's shoulders drop in her relief. But still she stares, considering him, and Jacob can't help but look right back.

It's with a surge of sudden affection that he remembers — not for the first time — Leah will always give him what he needs. She will always tell him when he's right, or when he's wrong. She will never baulk underneath the gaze of her Alpha, not if she can help it. But she knows that he would never do such a thing. He will never bind her, trap her, will never give her an Order. He will never be Sam.

(And for that, he knows they're _both_ glad.)

"Good," she says, finally, and she leans down to kiss his cheek, sudden and brief. Then just as quickly, she's turning back around and shutting off the light. "Now for the last time _, go to sleep._ "

And though Leah seems to drift off easily in his arms, Jacob doesn't — _can't_ — sleep for at least another hour.


	23. deep, deep shit (leah)

**_Warnings:_** _Mature but non-explicit content._

* * *

 _i will follow you with my whole life_

 _mumford & sons, "white blank page"_

* * *

 **chapter 20.**

 _deep, deep shit_

 _(leah)_

* * *

Jacob is asleep.

Leah is sure of this, because there's absolutely no way he'd consciously lie here with his hard length pressing into the small of her back.

(It really doesn't help that her lips are _still_ tingling from that brief, stupid, totally idiotic, totally impulsive kiss she'd given him earlier.)

It's nothing new. She's felt him against her before — particularly in the mornings, when he's not quite awake enough to pull away. He usually twists just enough to pretend that there isn't something going on. And there most definitely is. Eventually he makes an excuse to get up and go into the bathroom.

That's when she _sees_ exactly what he's trying to hide.

She's heard him, too. Has heard the pipes in the cheap motels groaning when he turns the shower on, has heard _his_ groans underneath the hot water.

Or maybe it's cold water. Sometimes she has to take those kind of showers, too. And, sometimes, the idea of Jacob standing underneath the hot — or cold — water, trying to not come undone has her trying not to do the same.

It's pretty obvious that Leah is in deep, deep shit.

In his sleep, Jacob shudders and pulls her closer to him. She bites on her top lip and ignores the lingering burn.

She doesn't regret kissing him. Not really. But it's yet another step she's crossed over the invisible line — another boundary line in her life that she really shouldn't have gone anywhere near in the first place.

Jacob is _off limits._

She loves him anyway.

When she had joined his Pack, it had been easy to pass off everything like _love_ and _desire_ and _want_ as her simply being grateful he wasn't pushing her out and away, all the way back to Sam. And she'd already spent months training all the guys to ignore her by driving them insane with Girl Problems anyway, so Jake and Seth were used to not listening too closely to her in case they heard something embarrassing.

Still, Jacob knows. Leah _knows_ that he does. Of _course_ he does. How can he not? It has simply become one of those things they Do Not Talk About — like him sobbing his heart out in the forest, or the way that he automatically reaches for her without seeming to realise when he is particularly unsure about something.

Leah isn't the type of girl to care that Jacob knows. She's not writing in a diary or crying over him or something equally as pathetic. Instead they've just seemed to quietly agree that while she doesn't pretend that she doesn't love him, she doesn't speak about it and he doesn't ask.

(Apart from that one time in Texas, when she'd hidden her face in his chest as he'd dared to skim the surface of her feelings.)

It does not mean that it's easy. But Jacob's broken, and the bruises on her own fractured heart have not long faded. She's also his Second; she can't complain about having to cover up things like _love_ and _desire_ and _want,_ because Jacob is counting on her right now. While she _wants_ , Jacob _needs._

So, no. She doesn't talk about it. Jake needs a level-head nearby, someone to champion him. Not a love-sick fool. He needs it as much as they both need a little normalcy, meaning that he _needs_ his ass kicked from time to time just as she _needs_ a good argument every now and then.

There is no room for _want_. Only normalcy, even if only to pretend, to remind each other that not _everything_ around them has gone to complete shit.

* * *

 _The sun hadn't yet risen when Leah woke, damp with hot sweat and twisted in the blankets. She forced herself to breathe, to calm her racing heart — to **feel** Jacob's solid weight curled around her, to turn her head and feel his steady breath against her cheek._

 _Real. It was real. He was here — not trapped, as he had been in her dream, his russet wolf chained and beaten, forced into submission. But still Leah held the strong forearms which held her as they lay on the lumpy mattress, protective even in sleep. Real._

 _She breathed in, out, in, out, careful not to disturb him, and tried to forget her dream of a child's hand holding a dog's leash. Her dream of razor-sharp teeth and broken bones — of a defeated, shattered soul._

 _Leah closed her eyes, and breathed._

 _In, out, in, out._

* * *

"Where is he?" Leah demands, tearing down the stairs at a speed that normally has her mom yelling at her.

"Leah?" Sitting across from her mother at the breakfast table, Charlie looks as if he didn't even know Leah was upstairs. That she had come home. "What're you—"

" _Where is Jacob?_ "

"I haven't seen him," her mom says over Charlie's nervous confusion. Sue is less fazed by emotional daughters than he is; she's had far more experience. "But Billy called and—"

It doesn't matter. Leah's already out of the door, managing to hold it together just long enough to make sure that she's underneath the cover of the trees before giving into familiar, furious tremors. She surrenders everything over to the grey wolf that lives inside of her and runs faster than she ever has before. It's as if the cold wind is at her heels, urging her to the place she knows Jacob has gone without her.

A vicious snarl escapes from behind her sharp teeth. If she had a voice, it would have translated into a string of colourful curses and insults. Still, the sound of her fury has smaller woodland creatures scattering in their terror, creating a clear path for her, just as the birds above flee to the skies.

 _No more leaving me behind._ That's what she'd told him, what she had made him promise. But he's gone and left her anyway, and the silence in her head is enough to tell her that he's done it on two feet.

(Even now, Jake is still refusing to phase. She knows it's because he fears his wolf is more powerful, that the lure of the imprint might prove stronger than his human heart.)

Two feet or not, the bastard has covered his trail; Leah can't find it. But she's fast, faster than all her brothers, faster than Jacob, and it takes all of two minutes to fly over the treaty line, towards the repulsive lair that the bloodsuckers call home.

Leah doesn't have to look for tracks. Because she knows that's where he has gone.

Without her.

She snarls again.

He _promised_.

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _Thank you, thank you, for every lovely word you've said. Here's another chapter (several days earlier than planned) — you deserve it._


	24. now or never (jacob)

_i wouldn't have you any other way / who wants love that makes sense anyway?_

 _mumford & sons, "wild heart"_

* * *

 **chapter 21.**

 _now or never_

 _(jacob)_

* * *

Early winter has changed the riverbank. The water is frigid, the trees are bare, and the moss which creeps up the sides of them is thick with the morning frost. The snow hasn't arrived yet, but Jacob thinks that it won't be long. The cold always finds a way back in, somehow.

He's sitting on the damp grass with his feet stretched out in the river — just the way they once did next to Leah's, after she'd taken his shoes off and the two of them had quietly murmured their fears to one another.

"I didn't want you to see me in front of her," Jake remembers telling her. "You know, when I… I can feel it on my face — that _imprint_ look."

"I've seen worse things," she had replied, remembering the first time she saw Sam looking at Emily. She'd whispered that particular part to him — that secret — as they'd laid in the darkness of a motel room in Phoenix.

This time, however, Jacob sits alone. He'd climbed back out of the window at first light. He had needed to get away — needed the space to breathe, to think. Away from Leah, away from her maddening scent which inspires a dangerous rebellion deep within his core.

Summer rain. Warm amber. The air before that first crack of thunder — the sort which has the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. _Home_. That's what Leah smells like. That's what Leah feels like.

It drives him fucking crazy.

It has him stiff in the morning with want, makes his mouth dry with a confusing desire that's steadily spiralling out of control. And the worst thing is that he knows Leah wants it too. She's wanted it — _him_ — for weeks and weeks and weeks, maybe even before she got into the damned Mercedes with him.

(That incredible, beautiful, mouth-watering Mercedes, with its seductive, purring engine, its missile-proof glass and its four thousand pounds of body armour. All of which he really, really doesn't want to give back. Not until he can get underneath the hood and look _properly_.)

Leah's not said anything about it — about the way she feels, the way she craves. Not once. Because she knows that he can't give her anything without it likely killing him and what little determination he has left.

At least, that's what Jake thinks it'll feel like. Dying. Even the _idea_ of hurting Renesmee makes him hurt. Never mind that he's been in agony since the moment he turned his back on her. And that agony… It would make it impossible to be with Leah. Unfair. Selfish. So Jacob refuses to let himself think about it, refuses to give into her, exactly like he's been refusing to give into Renesmee for completely different reasons.

And yet…

Jacob stops that train of thought. _No_. Absolutely not. He can't ruin what he has with Leah. Ever. He needs her as surely as he needs air in his lungs. Needs her fierce, wild loyalty. Her foul language. Her dark humour. She is everything he's not, and yet everything an Alpha could ever need a Second to be.

That's how a Pack is supposed to work. They need to be balanced, the Alpha and the Second. They need to have an uninterrupted rhythm between them, something reliable, something that will keep the whole Pack running when the shit hits the fan. And though some might scoff at the rhythm he and Leah have found, it's the only thing which is keeping Jacob's head above water right now.

He can't risk losing that.

* * *

 _Jacob glanced at Leah as they flew along the highway. "Are you okay?" he asked._

 _They were forty-seven miles away from Forks, sixty-two from La Push. They'd driven without sleep, stopping only to switch places and fill up the tank. They'd also bought questionable sandwiches in Kansas City and hadn't eaten since._

 _Leah scrubbed at her face with one hand, the other tight around the steering wheel, and let loose an angry breath. "If you keep on asking me that," she said, "then…"_

 _"What?"_

 _"I don't know what," she growled. "Just stop asking me, okay? I've got my big girl panties on, Jake. I'm not going anywhere, if that's what you're worried about. I'm hungry. I'm tired. I'm worried Cullen will try something funny. I'm scared that we'll be too late." She leant the side of her head against the cool window. "I mean, I'm sure he's just calling your bluff by dragging my mom and Sam and the rest of the world and its mother into it, but I'm still worried. And I'm angry, okay? I'm **that** fucking furious that if I phased I'd probably end up stuck with my tail on backwards or something."_

 _Silence. One beat, two._

 _They both began to laugh, loudly enough that they couldn't hear the words Sheryl Crow was belting out through the speakers._

* * *

She's found him.

There is a snarl, a snap of teeth. A whirl of movement as Leah phases at the same time she leaps. Her bare skin has barely replaced her fur by the time she has Jacob pinned on the damp grass. All without so much as stumbling, he thinks in a daze. On a normal day — a calmer day — she might have been proud of herself for that.

"How _dare_ you," she spits. "I'm getting _really_ sick of you—" smack! "— _leaving—"_ smack! "— _without—"_ smack! " _—me!_ "

She hits him square in the chest once more as if for good measure, only becoming even more enraged when he just stares up at her naked form and says nothing.

"What makes you think you can keep doing this, huh?" she demands. "You _swore_ to me, Jacob!"

She is all choppy hair, blazing eyes, fury and flame. She's wildfire. She's the waves crashing against First Beach during a storm. She's the breath in his lungs. And sometimes — sometimes, he can do nothing but watch her and marvel. Even when she wants to kill him.

" _You promised._ What kind of Alpha goes and—"

There are times when Jacob wonders whether Leah realises that, for all her ideas about what an Alpha should be, about what an Alpha should _do_ , she is pure-blooded Alpha herself. Perhaps not through direct lineage but rather sheer willpower, if she was to ever want it enough.

But he has to stop her there, unable to let her finish that sentence. He'd never promised to be _that_ kind of Alpha. In fact, he's made a point of _not_ making promises. Of not giving Orders, and especially not to do _anything_ that will weigh his Pack down. He swallows all he feels for her — all he has _ever_ felt for her — and says, "You're wrong."

She doesn't hear him. Can't, won't, downright refuses. "When are you going to learn? We're _Pack_. We're meant to do this stuff — we're supposed to be in this _together!_ But you — _fuck_!" She growls, wild, out of control, and throws herself off him.

Jacob doesn't get up. He keeps his eyes on the sky, because once upon a time she would have killed him for looking at her. For _really_ looking while she's not got a scrap of fabric covering her. He's not sure what would happen now.

"When you go off like this," she rages after jumping to her feet, "you're saying that you don't need anyone. That _you don't need me_."

"You're wrong," he says again, fighting a familiar craving. The one which is currently uncoiling itself, which has his throat on fire. The same craving he'd escaped from this morning.

Leah scoffs derisively at his words, and he suspects she might kick him. Break a rib, or two. Still, he doesn't move. Just like he'd remained perfectly still as she'd ran at him and taken her aim, weighing the decision whether to kill him or just _hurt_ him. He isn't completely certain which one he'd been hoping for exactly.

"How'dya figure that, _Chief_?"

Jacob turns his head just enough to look at her as she paces along the muddy riverbank. He tries to not see anything other than her face. "I do need you. And you're an idiot if you believe that's what I think."

"I don't think that," she argues. "I don't, but you _act_ like you think that. _You_ , Jacob. You keep on leaving, and I keep on following!" Her pacing comes to a vicious end as she whirls towards where he's sprawled on the ground. Her eyes are wet. "This is your last chance, Jake. I mean it. If…" She swipes at her eyes, more angry tears threatening to fall. "If you go again, then I'm not coming after you. And…" She swallows thickly. "And neither will I wait for you to come back."

Panic grips him, an ache so terrible that it has his chest tightening. "What?"

"I mean it," she repeats.

Jacob's scared because he knows it's true. "No." He scrambles to get up. "I swear, I wasn't going anywhere. Honestly. I just needed… Look, I promised, didn't I?"

Leah folds her arms over her breasts and raises her eyebrows. She doesn't believe him. And her lack of faith in him has another kind of heat rising up, and up, but Jake shoves it down and ignores the way his hands have begun shaking.

It's now, or never.

"I woke up and I…" Jacob straightens himself, looks at her square-on. If she wants to kill him for it, let her. "You were everywhere. You're everywhere _all the time_ and it's confusing and I just woke up and I needed space, okay? I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I'm sorry. But if I'd have stayed I would have—"

"What?" she demands. "You would have done what?"

But he can't say it. He wants to. But he _can't_. It's almost as if he's being silenced by an Order, like the ones Sam used to make so his tongue would twist, the ones which used to make him choke on the very thought of speaking what he'd been forbidden to.

It's not an Alpha's Order that's keeping Jacob silent, though. It's the imprint. It's the wolf inside of him which is howling to be set free and has fought him every step of the way.

Leah shakes her head, her disappointment radiating from every inch of her skin, and she turns to leave.

Before he can find the words that will beg her to stay with him, Jacob explodes.


	25. here with me (leah)

_oh, love, let me see inside your heart / all the cracks and broken parts_

 _ross copperman, "hunger"_

* * *

 **chapter 22.**

 _here with me_

 _(leah)_

* * *

Before the phase takes hold of him completely, Jacob's cry is mangled. It twists between outrage and misery, between pain and despair. And then he's howling — a deafening, mournful sound which leaves the russet wolf breathless and broken.

Leah falls on her own four paws without even half a thought to what she's doing, and she lunges towards Jacob with a kind of strength that sends him tumbling down the riverbank and into the shallow water.

Jacob growls, low and deep. He's so blind with fury that he can't think. His thoughts stutter, tripping over each other in their haste and Leah can't catch a single word of it. But there's _feelings._ Raw, personal feelings, the kind which should belong to Jake and Jake alone. Feelings which he's been hiding from her ever since he imprinted on Renesmee.

Not since Renesmee was born, and Bella was reborn, have Leah and Jacob been in these forms at the same time. Because the hive mind of a Pack is a constant stream of subconscious thoughts and fleeting memories. Absolutely _everything_ is laid bare for everyone to see, hear and _feel_ , and not a single second of it can be filtered out.

So Leah cannot help but listen to the way the red wolf chants _Renesmee, Renesmee, Renesmee…_ over and over and over, while the man – _Jacob_ – pushes and pulls and attempts to find some control. He rolls in the water, scrambling to his feet, and then his massive head snaps in the direction of the white house.

 _Renesmee._

Leah's heart leaps. Whether it's because of Jacob's anticipation from what is to come, or whether it's because of her own frightened panic she doesn't know. Either way, it sends her tumbling down the riverbank and crashing into Jacob again.

 _No,_ she roars, spitting and snarling. _No._

Water flies as the wolves attack one another — one trying to stop the other as he prepares to flee. Jacob might be bigger, stronger, but he's so maddened at himself, his wolf, at _Leah_ , that he can't focus on what he's doing. It makes it easy for her smaller, quicker form to gain the upper hand, even with his rage bleeding into her own head.

 _Letmegoletmegoletme—_

 _Stop, Jacob._ She digs her claws in, hard enough to pierce the skin underneath his pelt. _Stop._

She feels his pain as her claws begin to make him bleed. She doesn't care. It's enough — just enough — to make him _stop._ He gives up fighting, gives up struggling, and just _stops._

Only their ragged, hot panting can be heard. She can see it billowing out in front of them, the air has turned that cold in the time they have been gone.

Then, underneath her weight, Jacob whines _._

 _Leah._

Her name comes as a plea. A lament across the soul-bridge which connects them, which has opened up after so long of being closed off to one another.

 _I'm here,_ she tells him. _I'm here, I'm here._

And she doesn't let up.

* * *

 _After they had returned home, after she had — against all her new instincts — told Jacob to **stay** , and after she had left him behind, Paul Lahote had sought Leah out. _

_Sam's second-in-command had followed her all the way to her doorstep, and as she shut her front door behind her she knew that Paul stood there still, staring after her, wanting more answers than she could give — more than she was willing to give._

 _They were no longer Pack, her and Paul. Her and Sam. Her and Seth, Embry, Quil… And she owed no explanations whatsoever to any of them. To anyone._

 _Not about Jacob._

* * *

When Jacob thinks about Renesmee, Leah digs her claws in a little deeper and reminds him about the last month or so. About how he's _lived_ , how he's been able to smile and laugh and learn what it's like to be _just Jacob_.

When he considers fighting her and bolting towards The House, Leah shows her teeth and thinks about why he left. Why he ran.

When he loses himself in the memory of being touched by his imprint, Leah loses herself in _her_ memories of being touched by _him._

 _You don't want this,_ she tells him. _You've been fighting this. Please, Jake. Please. Try and remember._

She drags up memory after memory: the relief she'd felt after he'd returned, bruised and broken but on two legs and breathing; the way he'd curled around her in Texas, and every state they passed through since; how he holds her hand and traces strange patterns on her bare skin when he doesn't seem to be thinking about it; the image of him standing underneath her window, waiting to be let in.

And slowly, so slowly, with painstaking effort, his jaw tight, Jacob finds his focus.

He remembers, too. He remembers picking up the trail she'd left for him to follow in Rockport. He remembers holding onto her, remembers the feel of her against him at night. He remembers her standing in the bathroom doorway in nothing but a towel while her eyes had roved over him. He remembers _her._

Leah.

 _Leah._

 _Yes,_ she thinks back. _I'm here. With you. And you're here with me. It's just us._

... and just like that, the fight leaves Jake's body.

 _Leah._

Her huff is triumphant, and she pulls back her claws. _Yes,_ she says again, and she gingerly steps off him, knowing that they need to get away. Now. They need to get back behind their lines _—_ behind _Sam's_ lines, where she can think and he can breathe, where they can decide just exactly what the fuck they're going to _—_

There's a prickle against her neck, and the undeniable smell of _leech_ and _—_

"Welcome back, Jacob."


	26. welcome back (jacob)

**_A/N:_** _I previously made a warning about line lifts, verbatim, etc. This chapter is a prime example. Please note that if you recognise something you're reading, then it's likely not my words. And if you're SM in disguise, know that it killed me to use them. (I gave myself a fresh headache when I realised I'd have to rifle through the sheer madness that is Breaking Dawn. The pain is real.)_

 _There is also a repeat of text from Chapter 14: 'Then' (which I am happy to report is entirely my own)._

 _So, without further delay..._

* * *

 _i won't raise my white flag in this life_

 _daughtry, "white flag"_

* * *

 **chapter 23.**

 _welcome back_

 _(jacob)_

* * *

"Welcome back, Jacob."

There is roaring in his head. Fierce and wild roaring, which would surely translate to a string of expletives and threats if Leah were able to speak.

(Jacob knows _exactly_ what she would say.)

The grey wolf leaps up the riverbank, her hackles up and spit flying from her muzzle. She's got tunnel vision; she is focused on one thing only in her violent rage. And Jacob… He knows that he _can't_ let her do this — he just _can't._

The Alpha's Order slips from him before he realises what he's saying. Slips from him before he realises the weight of his single word, and the effect it will have on Leah.

 ** _Stop_** ** _._**

Jake kicks up water from the river as he scrambles to his feet and clambers up the bank, less graceful but with almost as much purpose. And when he sees Leah's grey form splayed on the damp grass, he hates himself. But if she goes and gets herself killed, then he's absolutely _screwed_. If she gets herself killed, his life will not be worth living.

"There's hardly a need for such dramatics, Jacob," Cullen says disapprovingly.

Leah and Jacob both growl at the same time, but they are ignored.

Well. Fuck him. Jacob can play that game, too.

He turns his back on the bloodsucker and presses his wet nose against Leah's furry side, overcome with remorse. He is apologetic, he is guilty, and although he can't find the words right now he needs her to understand this. He's only just gotten hold of himself again. All because of her.

Leah snorts, still shackled by the Order he had heedlessly given, but she calms somewhat. Resigns herself to not being allowed to kill anyone — any _thing_ — just yet.

 _Fine,_ she says after grudgingly backing down. She's not angry that Jacob has stopped her so harshly; she's just pissed that Cullen's been allowed to keep his head. _Fine._

Immediately, Jacob retracts his Order. He feels her strength return at the same time, as well as her relief and her forgiveness. Neither of them look at Cullen, who has been watching them intently, not until they are standing side by side.

And stand by side, Jacob does not look until Leah looks, too. This is one of those things they need to do together. This is one of those things that he knows he does not have the courage to do on his own anymore.

The wolves and Edward stare at one another, all three of them unyielding. Jacob, with Leah's strength, does not cower under those golden eyes. And Edward does not flinch at what he hears, at what he feels from them.

 _What do you want, bloodsucker,_ Leah finally says. A demand, not a question.

Edward straightens his concrete body. "I apologise for the way this has happened," he begins, although everything about his tone is unapologetic. "When I gave you those keys—" he looks directly at Jacob "—I did not expect that you would have the mind to leave for good."

Jacob blinks. What else was he supposed to do? He was given an out, and he took it. He would never have left otherwise, and Cullen knows it. He would have turned up at that stupid house every single day, would have hovered in the doorway and would have been coaxed further and further across the doorstep until he was finally considered _Coven_ and not _Pack_.

Leah recoils at the thought.

"You came back," Cullen explains, "before Renesmee was born. I gave you ' _an out_ ', as you call it, and you came back."

The memory hits Jacob with full force. Beside him, Leah whines from the crippling emotion he feels — as she, too, remembers. As if she had been there when it had happened. When Jacob had escaped the first time.

* * *

 _He was all alone._

 _No longer was Edward on his side. No longer did Edward hate the **thing** inside of Bella's stomach as much as he did. The **thing** inside of Bella's stomach which was killing her, slowly and surely. The **thing** which was almost as much of a monster as its father was…_

 _… who darted to a small end table, and pulled something from the drawer there. He tossed whatever it was at Jacob, who caught it reflexively._

 _"Go, Jacob," Edward said. "Get away from here." He didn't say it harshly — he said the words like they were a life preserver. Because Edward was helping him find the escape that he was dying for._

 _Jacob looked down. In his hand, there were a set of car keys._

* * *

"I was wrong," present-Edward says. "I was wrong to believe that you would return when my wife and my daughter needed you."

 _They didn't need me,_ Jacob says, at the same time Leah snaps, _What about what **he** needs?_

"Like I said," Edward drawls, as if the wolves before him are missing something obvious. Venom laces his every word. "I was wrong."

* * *

 _"Jacob. Catch."_

 _His hand snapped up in front of his face, only by instinct alone catching what had been thrown at him. Metal dug into his calloused hand._

 _"There's cash in the glovebox. It will be enough to fill the tank."_

 _Jacob blinked. Everything was in slow motion, when he could actually see straight; his vision seemed to come in quick fits and starts and was tainted red around the edges. He wasn't sure what part of him that was down to. Wolf? Jacob?_

 _" **Go**." Cullen looked almost sorry for what he had tried to force. But not sorry enough. _

_Never enough._

* * *

Edward's stare is unrelenting. "If I had not… _alarmed_ you both the way I did—"

 _That's putting it mildly,_ Leah says sourly. _You threatened us. Our family._

"—would you have come back?"

 _No,_ Jacob tells him. _I never wanted this. I still don't._

He knows he didn't need to give Edward an answer, not really. They all know the truth. They all know that Jacob had thought about it all the way from Florida to Washington. They all know that he _has_ thought about it, ever since Leah parked up outside of his house and walked around the Mercedes three times.

No. He would have never come back. In an ideal world, he would have lived in and out of motels and greasy diners for the rest of his life. Anything other than what he had been doing, all those weeks ago.

He knows that Leah would have stayed with him, too.

 _Damn right._

"Nothing has changed, then." Cullen does not look surprised by this. Whatever he was expecting, he has seen and heard it all.

Leah snaps her jaw dangerously.

"Well, maybe some things have." Golden eyes flicker between Jacob and Leah, reading something else which lies there. Something _more_ than the thoughts he can read.

Jacob stares straight back. If he has learnt anything while hopping from state to state, it is to not be ashamed. He will never be ashamed for what he has done, despite what his father and Sue and Old Quil might think. He is an Alpha. _The_ Alpha.

And though he hates that damn title, he will not apologise for it.

"I suppose we shall have to do this your way after all, Jacob."

Edward finally moves, and Leah tenses. Her whole body leans forward as if ready to attack, ready to defend. This is what she is here for. This is what she will do without question, whether she has a chance of winning or not. Because she loves him. Her Pack.

(Jacob sees it all now. And Leah... she has seen all of him.)

Edward smiles mirthlessly. The wolves are dying to wipe it off his face. "Admirable, but unnecessary," he says, before turning to the trees. "Bella?"

* * *

 ** _A/N v2:_** _Thank you for sticking with me, guys. I don't usually do this, and I'm really really not plugging for reviews, but if you're still here and enjoying the ride would you mind stepping out of Lurker's Corner? Just write 'here', or 'Nessie r0ckz' or something. I'd love to know how many of you there are!_


	27. to whatever end (jacob)

**_Author's Note/Disclaimer_** _: A few lines from Eclipse have been used in this chapter. Not claiming it's my own work, blah blah blah, and I'm more than okay with that._

 _Have I mentioned lately that you guys rock? (And I know that you're rooting for particular character deaths, or perhaps for some serious injury to happen. Sorry. Just... not yet, okay? One word: sequel. Another word: comingtogetherinthebackofmymindandIknowexactlywhatIwannado. That's all I'm saying.)  
_

* * *

 _this just might be the death of me_

 _daughtry, "death of me"_

* * *

 **chapter 24.**

 _to whatever end_

 _(jacob)_

* * *

The moment Jacob knew he'd lose Bella — _really_ lose her — wasn't when he imprinted, like most people might think. It was the day she decided to go to Italy. That shitty, sucker-punch-to-his-gut kind of day when she had chosen to leave him, as if he hadn't just spent months and months giving up every single piece of his stupid, stupid heart to her.

He'd still waited for her to return. Of course he had. He'd spent the whole time wallowing in his garage, sending up all kinds of promises to every supreme being he'd ever heard of, needing her to come back to Forks alive so that he could carry on fighting.

And he did. He had fought against the inevitable, for Bella, every single second of every single day, right up until Cullen had plunged the venom into her dying body.

Jacob hates his stupid, stupid heart.

He hates that it still twinges a little uncomfortably when he sees Bella's new face again. She is perfect and polished, and she looks at him like the two of them are still _Jake and Bells._ That hurts. Not because he once loved her — _once —_ but rather because they are not _Jake and Bells._ They never have been, for Jacob Black has never belonged to Bella Swan.

Looking at her now, at her face, at her eyes, Jacob finally realises that he is glad for it.

Bella has become nothing more than just another bloodsucker. Even if her eyes are a little different to the rest. The colour of them seems torn between the shade of a newborn's crimson and Cullen's orange topaz, thanks to her new diet.

 _Creepy, huh,_ Leah thinks over her swelling pride.

 _Creepy_ , Jacob agrees.

( _Just another bloodsucker_ , a smaller voice says.)

The two wolves and the two vampires stand together for only two, maybe three more seconds, before Bella's flawless face crumples into a frown and she looks to Edward. A few moments is too long to wait, in the world of a vampire.

"What are they saying?"

"Nothing complimentary," Edward tells her. Because he will always give Bella anything, everything she wants — everything that he _thinks_ she needs. It's how they both treat Renesmee. Even Jacob had seen that in the weeks he had witnessed his imprint grow at impossible speeds.

"Oh." Bella turns back to the wolves. To Jacob. She looks a little hurt and defeated, and sighs needlessly. "I suppose you _did_ say that it would have to be a long-distance friendship."

Leah bristles beside Jake, but she doesn't have to ask what Bella is talking about; she's had to drown in _that_ particular memory one too many times, especially while he had tried to forget himself in the Canadian wilderness. She's had to watch that hazy, morphine-fuelled, dream-like memory play out, over and over and over…

* * *

 _"Can I tell you what the worst part is?" he asked. "Do you mind? I **am** going to be good."_

 _"Will it help?" she whispered._

 _"It might. It couldn't hurt."_

 _"What's the worst part, then?"_

 _"The worst part," said Jacob, the very last part of his young cracked heart feeling heavy as he surrendered it to Bella, "is knowing what would have been."_

* * *

Before he and Leah can lose themselves in it again, Jacob pushes it all away with a hot, angry huff.

Not now. Not ever.

Bella completely misunderstands his reaction. She reaches out, because she thinks he is sad. Not angry, like one part of him has always been since he phased. Since he imprinted.

"Jake…"

He shakes his head. He's not sad. The truth is that Jacob has already grieved for his best friend. He's cried for her more times that he cares to remember — before _and_ after _._ So, no. He's not sad. Not about her eyes, not about the way she _stinks,_ and not about the choices _she_ has made.

He hopes that Edward will tell her all of this later. Bella is bound to ask.

 _I bet she will,_ Leah says as she inches closer towards the other half of her Pack. _Maybe I'll rip that pretty head off before she gets the chance, though. Or will that upset you?_

Edward snarls loudly enough that the others can probably hear him back at the house, while Jacob simply bumps her shoulder in his reply.

He and Leah don't need to speak, not really. Her pleasant warmth at his side is more enough. It is a welcomed comfort, a sign of solidarity against those who no longer know or care for him. Leah's warmth reminds him that she will not let him fall, and that she will be here with him to see this through. To whatever end.

"I don't understand," Bella says then, looking between them and her husband. Her tone is hesitant, too careful for a vampire. "I thought you'd come back, Jake. For Renesmee."

 _'Not Leah,'_ is what Bella really means, but they all hear the words which have gone unspoken.

 _Ha,_ is all the grey wolf thinks.

"Jacob forgot himself," Edward explains coldly. "Leah was… helping. He is still fighting the imprint, love."

" _Still_?" Bella looks absolutely mutinous. "Imprinting isn't something you can just resist, Jake! You can't possibly carry on ignoring it!"

Edward puts a hand on her shoulder, as if he means to hold back his suddenly enraged wife. Temperamental, uncontrollable newborns and all, Jacob thinks.

"You told me that, remember? It's _impossible._ "

Jacob does remember, actually. He remembers the conversation on the beach as clearly as he remembers blowing air into her lungs after she'd jumped off that damn cliff. As clearly as he can still hear her calling him _sort of beautiful._ A whole lifetime ago.

 _Before._

"He remembers," says Cullen.

But Jacob has already phased. His transformation is seamless, as always, as a strong and unyielding Alpha's should be, because he can speak for himself. He doesn't need a… _translator_ to do it for him for one more second; he is in complete control now, thanks to his Second's strength.

It's his turn to talk.


	28. who i am (leah)

_in you i have no doubt_

 _mumford & sons, "picture you"_

* * *

 **chapter 24.**

 _who i am_

 _(leah)_

* * *

The way Bella averts her eyes when Jacob rises onto two feet is laughable. If she were human still, her cheeks would have given the game away entirely; she looks anywhere _but_ Jacob, and for a second Leah actually wonders if Cullen's hand is going to snap up and shield his wife's eyes just in case she decides to peek, or something.

"Jacob, is this really necess—"

Jacob cuts across the parasite. " _Shut. Up."_ His hands don't even shake — not even a little bit — and he sounds like an Alpha. Authoritative, strong, brave, and iron-willed. "You don't speak for me. _Nobody_ speaks for me."

Beside him, Leah can't help the way her body responds to every single word he says. That… _thunder_ in Jacob's voice has her wolf begging her to kneel, to submit; it has a current running over her skin, compelling her to do whatever he wants. Whatever he needs.

She _never_ felt this way under Sam's leadership. And she certainly never reacted this way. After all, Sam was never supposed to lead. It is _Jacob_ — not _Sam_ — who has Ephraim Black's blood. It is Jacob who is the true Alpha, and who is well aware of that as he stands in front of these leeches.

Leah wishes they could all see her smile.

"Neither do you speak for my Pack," Jake continues, "and you certainly do not speak for my tribe. You do not _dictate._ That's _my_ job."

 _He is your Alpha,_ Leah's body tells her as he speaks. _The only Alpha. It is his right._

Edward bares his teeth. "Technically speaking, Jacob—"

" _Technically_ ," Jacob interrupts again, although his eyes are on Bella now, "I am the chief of this tribe. So _technically_ I can revoke my word. _Technically_ I can say that he—" Jake points a finger at Cullen "—broke the treaty when he changed you. Bite or no bite, I don't care."

"You wouldn't," Bella hisses.

"There are lot of things I didn't think I'd ever do," Jacob says. He sounds all too reasonable, and Leah doesn't have to hear his mind to know that it means danger when he sounds like this. "But you're right. That's not who I am."

Bella's lip curls. "Really? I don't recognise you anymore."

At the emotion which simmers in Swan's musical voice, Leah immediately tenses. She lowers her stance not because of Jacob, but because she's getting ready to defend him. Protect. Bella is still a newborn, after all, and Leah will never forget the way that other crazy bitch's army fought against them in June. They were wild and violent.

"Bella is the most controlled newborn we have ever seen," Cullen snaps, narrowing his eyes at Leah as he listens to her remember the red-eyes. "She is more self-possessed than all of you _dogs_ put together."

"Edward, don't—" Bella says, at the same time Jacob puts a scorching hand on Leah's grey shoulder. He doesn't need to say the words; she understands.

Back off.

Leah growls unhappily. Her mom would have turned blue if she so much as knew about the string of profanities running through her head right now, but she really doesn't care. She throws every single syllable at Cullen, her hackles up and her ears flat against her head as she spits behind her teeth.

Jacob waits until she is done. Then, with a hint of dryness he asks, "You good?"

Leah's tail twitches. And when Cullen _finally_ looks away, she snorts and reluctantly straightens her legs.

Yeah. She's good.

Leah steadies her breathing, taking huge, deep lungfuls of breaths as she pulls herself together. If she can't help the way her body is reacting to Jacob's authority, then she certainly can't help the way it vibrates in response to being in the presence of a bloodsucker; she exists only to tear them apart and keep the Reservation safe.

"I want you to leave," Jacob says suddenly. For a moment, Leah thinks that he means _her_ — thinks that he is actually sending her _away_ after all this time — but then he says, "You were leaving anyway, right? You were just waiting for me to get my shit together and come with you."

"You still can, Jake," Bella protests, her anger already dissipated. "She's been waiting for you, all this time. _We've_ been waiting for you."

 _She's been waiting for you._

 _She's been waiting for_ —

"I don't…" For a second, Jacob's resolve slips. Just for a second, as he tries to get the words out. As he tries to force out the words that will make this final. And Leah wills him on, because Jacob needs to get this out. Now. Or he never will. They may as well pack their bags and leave with the suckers right now. Go wherever the sun doesn't shine and build a whole new life with them.

 _Say the words say the words, say it, go on, now_ , Leah begs.

" _No_." It sounds as if the word is being torn right out of him. "I'm done, Bella. Why can't you understand that? Even after… You _still_ think I'm going to come back, don't you?" He scoffs nastily. "Just like I always do, right?"

 _That_ pulls Bella up short.

"Well I'm not this time. Never again. I'm done. Get it? _I am done_."

Jacob has nearly run out of control; his hands have a slight tremor, and there's a tiny bead of sweat on his brow. This is a strain for him. But he's doing it. He _will_ do it.

"And what about Renesmee? _What about my daughter?"_

 _What about her!_ Leah wants to howl.

Jacob clenches his hands to his sides and shakes his head with what looks like monumental effort. "I don't care."

"You _do_ —"

"No, I don't!" he shouts, every inch of him vibrating as he fights another phase — the kind which looms when they get too angry, when the blood starts pounding in their ears. "Do you need me to spell it out for you or something, Bella? _I_ don't care about her. _I_ don't want her. _I_ don't need her."

And that is when Bella finally understands what Leah learnt long ago.

Jacob would rather die than live without choice.

* * *

 _Leah wondered whether it was the right thing to ask. She wondered whether Jacob would push her away or run again when she did. But she **had** to ask. She had to know. "Do you think you'll ever forget?"_

 _Forget Renesmee. Forget the imprint. Just forget._

 _Like she was slowly, but very surely, forgetting Sam. Like she had forgotten his birthday._

 _While they lay together underneath the covers in Alabama, Jacob's heart thudded beside her. Before long, he drew himself closer to her without seeming to think about it._

 _"No," he finally said, breathing in the scent of her skin as he held her. "Maybe I'm not supposed to."_

* * *

"You've got until the end of next week," Jacob tells them through gritted teeth. Leah doesn't know how he's doing it. How he's lasted this long. "And if—"

"You are a damn coward—" Edward starts, just at the same time Bella begs, "Jake, please!"

"—if I catch a whiff of you after that," Jacob continues, as if they haven't spoken, "you'll have more than Leah to worry about."

As Bella continues to screech at him, Jacob turns his back, and he leaves.


	29. the final hurdle (jacob)

_i'm tired of waiting for the ship to come and being told that it can't be done_

 _daughtry, "stuff of legends"_

* * *

 **chapter 25.**

 _the final hurdle_

 _(jacob)_

* * *

Jacob walks twenty paces before throwing up.

He braces himself against a tree, heaving until there is nothing left, until his eyes are streaming and he can barely stand for another second, until—

Leah is there instantly, all warmth and grey fur and everything he needs in that one moment. She holds him up, letting him lean on her solid weight until they're well over the boundary line which separates _wolf_ and _vampire._

She's here. It's fine. He'll be fine.

Jake chants the reassurance to himself as he forces himself to take one step after another. All he wants to do right now is turn tail and run all the way back. He is going against the grain. He is stretching every string which holds him to his imprint as he keeps moving. But this is the final test. The final hurdle. If he can get home, after doing all of that, after _saying_ all of that… If Leah can get him home, then he can do anything.

( _They_ can do anything.)

Well, maybe not anything. He has to try and live his life now. His life, and nobody else's.

* * *

 _"Where are we going?"_

 _"Does it matter?"_

 _"No."_

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Only the epilogue to come, guys!_


	30. epilogue (jacob and leah)

_wherever there is you, i will be there too_

 _of monsters and men, "silhouettes"_

* * *

 **epilogue.**

 _next_

 _(jacob and leah)_

* * *

Two days _after_ , Jacob gives the car back.

He leaves it at the top of Cullen's fancy gravel driveway with the keys in the ignition and the doors wide open, and Leah tells him they're lucky he did even that much — had he left it up to her, she would have parked it on the wrong side of the treaty line and thrown the keys in the ocean.

She wouldn't have given back the money that's still in the glovebox, either.

* * *

Four days _after_ , the La Push bonfires illuminate the sky.

Jacob and Leah sit together, their legs dangling over the edge of the cliff which overlooks First Beach as they watch the flames from afar. They can hear their brothers, their families around the Reservation, singing and dancing. Celebrating.

The Cullens have gone.

When the morning sun breaks through the clouds, Jacob stands first and wordlessly holds his hand out for Leah. It's only when they fall into bed (Leah's, because it's bigger, and because Sue is spending a hell of a lot of time at the Swan's place these days) half an hour later that Jacob eventually speaks.

"My headache is gone," he says hoarsely. They haven't spoken all night, but that's okay; they do just fine without words. And then he puts his head on her stomach and closes his eyes.

Leah threads her fingers through his hair until he falls asleep.

* * *

Seven days _after_ , pretty much everyone is still furious with them.

Billy, Old Quil, Sam.

(Leah hasn't spoken to Sam since they came back. She has no plans to speak to Emily, either. She will never forgive them.)

Seth, Embry, Quil.

(Jacob has made it extremely clear that there are no open vacancies in his Pack. And the guys are _pissed_.)

Rachel, Paul.

("You're her little brother," Leah reasons. "She thinks I've corrupted you."

"Haven't you?" Jacob asks, his smile wide.)

And then there's Sue, who is torn between the relief she feels that her daughter is smiling again and the loyalty she feels to the Quileutes and their sacred traditions, their legends. She is an elder, after all. But Leah is _happy,_ and she hasn't been happy for nearly _two years_ , so Sue's not furious — not really, not like the others. She just wishes that the kids hadn't bolted like a pair of runaways and forced the Cold Ones to make their threats.

(Besides, her loyalty to her husband has always triumphed over her loyalty to the tribe, and Harry would have welcomed _any_ boy that makes his daughter smile. Whether that the boy is Jacob or has white skin wouldn't have made a difference.)

So that afternoon, while Leah is in the shower, Sue sits Jacob down in her kitchen and looks for her scissors. Charlie has only just left — eyes red, heart broken, because Bella has called to say she's not coming home; she's not sick anymore, she just doesn't _want_ to — and Jacob looks inherently guilty because of it. Charlie's pain is his fault.

Jake keeps his eyes down as Sue tidies his hair, because nobody else is going to do it for him. Leah might, but Sue doesn't trust her daughter to not shave it all off just because she'd like to see what he would look like.

"I don't need to tell you what will happen if you hurt her," Sue says, rather all too conversationally after a few minutes. She might as well be talking about the weather as she trims his dark, wayward hair so that he doesn't have to keeping looking as if he's just been dragged through the brush.

"I know," Jacob mumbles. He'd been expecting to be warned at some point. "She'll kick my ass."

Sue laughs.

And that is that.

* * *

Eleven days _after_ , over two weeks since they mailed them from the other side of the country, their parents receive their postcards.

Billy swallows his pride and asks for his magnet.

* * *

Twelve days _after_ , the magnet from Mississippi with Elvis' face on it has pride of place next to the _aloha_ dolphin.

* * *

Fourteen days _after_ , the Council calls a meeting.

Jacob and Leah stand outside, hand in hand, side by side, just as they always will be from now on.

"Ready to tell them all about what a bad influence I am?" Leah asks, bracing herself. It's not only the Council who are waiting for them. Sam is, too.

"You're a saint compared to me lately." Jacob squeezes her fingers, drawing her eyes to him. His face softens. "You don't have to be here, you know."

"Yes," she says resolutely, "I do. Anyway, where would I go? Bit late to start leaving you now."

Leah smiles at him, bright and whole with that wonderful, wicked humour in her brown eyes. Jacob doesn't know what he's done to deserve such loyalty, such faith in him. She really would follow him anywhere.

He will love her his whole life.

"I'm never going to get rid of you, am I?"

"Do you mind?"

"No," he tells her honestly, squeezing her hand again.

He really doesn't.


	31. the most indulgent author's note ever

**Timeline**  
 _(according to Lexicon and me — not the Guide)_

2006

 **September 10:** Renesmee is born. Jacob imprints.  
 **September 13:** Bella awakens as a newborn vampire. Jacob's Pack wait for her to return from her first hunt. Leah reveals the truth.  
 **September 14:** Seth and Embry rejoin Sam's Pack.  
 **September 16:** Leah sees her mom. Edward comes for Jacob.  
 **September 19:** Leah talks to Sam.  
 **September 23:** _Motivational Speeches_  
 **October 2:** Jacob and Leah leave Washington; _Then_  
 **October 15:** Texas; _This Isn't Shit I Can Sort Out_  
 **October 31:** _If It Makes You Happy_  
 **November 2:** Leah and Jacob send postcards; _Still Going Strong_  
 **November 3:** Alabama; _Now_  
 **November 6:** Florida; _After_  
 **November 8:** Jacob and Leah return home.  
 **November 13:** The Cullens leave.

* * *

 **Explanatory Author's Note & Other Things**  
 _(aka the most indulgent, non-compulsory afterword ever which you really don't have to read)_

This fic has made sure that I never need to look at a map of the USA again. I know American states better than I know the English counties (and I've lived in a fair few). Cheers, Google.

And thank you, everyone, for the reviews and messages you've taken the time to write. It's hard to express over and over how fantastic you guys have been, and I'm glad to have found the good guys in this strange, gigantic fandom. You stuck with this through lack of explicit sex, real action... hell, you didn't even get a proper kiss. But I'm inherently grateful for each and every one of you and the support you've given.

Editing will happen _—_ one day.

(I think I should really sit down to edit TSoG, first… but writing the already thought-out sequel to this beckons... _That_ will have the action we all really want...)

All in all, I think we did pretty great.

See you in 2019!

Or next week. Or something.

* * *

 **An Illustrated Guide Experience**  
 _(aka "please don't make me open it again")_

At some point around Part Three when I was starting to go a bit nuts, I needed to know more about imprinting than the novels could give me. Searching ' _what happens when an imprint is broken_ ' or ' _the ways to break an imprint_ ' and all its variations didn't help. Instead I ended up reading _a lot_ of FanFiction, and I even dipped my toe into the muddy waters of Meyer's website. Eventually I caved and bought the Official Illustrated Guide.

I skipped Meyer's interview, along with the largest portion of the book which is dedicated to vampires and covens with a look of disgust on my face. That look turned outraged when I realised that there were _less than 100 pages_ given to the Quileutes. (It went back to disgust when I skimmed the FAQ and saw " _How is Edward able to be around Bella when she has her monthly cycle?_ ")

No surprise that I didn't really learn anything (except Jacob and Leah's 'borrowed' Mercedes Guardian is not a real car). There's not even two pages on imprinting, considering the importance of it in Eclipse and Breaking Dawn. But I read this:

" _From the second he sees the object of his imprinting, he will do anything to please and protect her. All other commitments in his life become secondary, even his commitment to the pack."_

That… _stupidness_ is the _whole reason_ I wrote Now & Then. It's not about Jacob and Leah, really. It's about having a choice, about _not_ letting your family and your Pack become secondary. And Jacob is all about choice.

 _Breaking Dawn, Chapter 16: 'Too-Much-Information Alert'_

 **Jacob:** What's wrong with going out and falling in love like a normal person, Leah? Imprinting is just another way of getting your choices taken away from you.  
 **Leah:** Sam, Jared, Paul, Quil… they don't seem to mind.  
 **Jacob:** None of them _have_ a mind of their own.  
 **Leah:** You don't want to imprint?  
 **Jacob:** Hell, no!

So I said hell no, and haven't looked at the Guide since.

* * *

 **Music**

A lot of songs found their way into my Blackwater playlist while writing this. In case you like soundtracks as much as I do (my Spotify playlists are _huge_ and, a little embarrassingly, extremely organised), or you enjoy song recommendations for writing, I have made a list(s). From me to you.

(I also recommend Mumford & Son's latest album 'Delta', and Daughtry's album 'Cage to Rattle'. Both definitely helped push me over the last hump, which you probably figured throughout the third part.)

 **part 1 (leah)**

continents — window view  
say (all i need) — onerepublic  
wild west — lissie  
by your side — lifehouse  
hopeless wanderer — mumford & sons  
tear up this town — keane  
dust to dust — the civil wars

 **part 2 (jacob)**

pieces — red  
get me through — daughtry  
storm — lifehouse  
u + me — dan black  
look after you — the fray  
the promise — tracy chapman  
over you — daughtry  
run boy run — woodkid

 **part 3 (leah and jacob)**

after the storm — mumford & sons  
find my way back — cody fry  
wilder mind — mumford & sons  
ghosts that we knew — mumford & sons  
white blank page — mumford & sons  
wild heart — mumford & sons  
hunger — ross copperman  
white flag — daughtry  
death of me — daughtry  
picture you — mumford & sons  
stuff of legends — daughtry

 **others (for writing, for jacob, for leah, for the pack, for blackwater)**

holes in the sky — m83  
do i wanna know? — hozier (originally by arctic monkeys)  
follow you — bring me the horizon  
broken — jake bugg  
mostly anything by sam smith (seriously)  
if it makes you happy — sheryl crow (leah's pick-me-up, jacob's nightmare)

* * *

Thanks again. Really.


	32. awards and things

A new year already! Happy 2019!

Now & Then has been nominated for an award from Twi FanFiction Recs for the Top 10 Fics which were completed in December 2018. I am stunned. You can vote by visiting twifanfictionrecs dot com, or by finding the link which has kindly been left in the reviews.

If we make it into the top 10, we'll go into the next category for the Top 10 of 2018.

I will never stop thanking you for cheerleading me towards the end. I _loved_ writing this story.

See you around for the planned sequel... coming soon!


End file.
